There were great collectors—dilettanti of houses imperial and royal and princely and noble, of all the grades of greatness—who would give any sum for bonbonnières and tabatières of eighteenth-century work by any one of the few famous masters of that time. A genuine, incontestable sweetmeat box from the ateliers of the Louis XIV. or Louis XV. period would fetch almost a fabulous sum. Then again he paused, doubtfully.
René bowed, and his wondering glance said without words, “I know this. But I have no eighteenth-century work to sell you: if I had, should we starve in an attic?”
His patron coughed a little, looked at Lili, then proceeded to explain yet further.
In René’s talent he had discerned the hues, the grace, the delicacy yet brilliancy, the voluptuousness and the désinvolteure of the best eighteenth-century work. René doubtless did other and higher things which pleased himself far more than these airy trifles. Well, let him pursue the greater line of art if he chose; but he, the old man who spoke, could assure him that nothing would be so lucrative to him as those bacchantes in wreaths of roses and young tambourine-players gorge au vent dancing in a bed of violets, and beautiful marquises, powdered and jewelled, looking over their fans, which he had painted for those poor little two-sous boxes of the populace, and the like of which, exquisitely finished on enamel or ivory, set in gold and tortoise-shell rimmed with pearls and turquoises or opals and diamonds, would deceive the finest connoisseur in Europe into receiving them as—whatever they might be signed and dated.
If René would do one or two of these at dictation in a year, not more,—more would be perilous,—paint and sign them and produce them with any touches that might be commanded; never ask what became of them when finished, nor recognize them if hereafter he might see them in any illustrious collection—if René would bind himself to do this, he, the old man who spoke, would buy his other paintings, place them well in his famous galleries, and, using all his influence, would make him in a twelvemonth’s time the most celebrated of all the young painters of Paris.
It was a bargain? Ah, how well it was, he said, to put the best of one’s powers into the most trifling things one did! If that poor little two-sous box had been less lavishly and gracefully decorated, it would never have arrested his eyes in the bonbon-booth at St. Cloud. The old man paused to take snuff and receive an answer.
René stood motionless.
Lili had sunk into a seat, and was gazing at the tempter with wide-open, puzzled, startled eyes. Both were silent.
“It is a bargain?” said the old man again. “Understand me, M. René Claude. You have no risk, absolutely none, and you have the certainty of fair fame and fine fortune in the space of a few years. You will be a great man before you have a gray hair: that comes to very few. I shall not trouble you for more than two dix-huitième siècle enamels in the year—perhaps for only one. You can spend ten months out of the twelve on your own canvases, making your own name and your own wealth as swiftly as your ambition and impatience can desire. Madame here,” said the acute dealer with a pleasant smile—“Madame here can have a garden sloping on the Seine and a glass house of choicest flowers—which I see are her graceful weakness—ere another rose-season has time to come round, if you choose.”
His voice lingered softly on the three last words.