Houdon laughed and wagged his head.
“No, no,” said he; “you deceive others: not Houdon. I know well the disguised prince. Come”—he looked up and down the Boulevard St. Germain before he ventured to cross it—“trust your friend Houdon, my dear Cartarette.”
“I am quite honest with you.”
“Bah! Have your own way, then. Pursue your fancy of self-support for a time. It is noble, that. But think not that I am deceived. Me, Houdon: I know. Name of an oil-well, you should send this masterpiece to the Salon!”
But just at the corner of the rue St. André des Arts, the great composer thought that he saw ahead of him a friend with whom he had a pressing engagement of five minutes. He excused himself with such a wealth of detail that Cartaret was convinced of the slightness of the Fourget acquaintanceship, which Houdon had not again referred to.
“I shall be finished and waiting at this corner long ere you return,” vowed Houdon. “Go, my friend, and if that little dealer pays you one third of what your picture is worth, my faith, he will bankrupt himself.”
So Cartaret went on alone, and was presently glad that he was unaccompanied.
For Fourget would not buy the picture. It was a silly sketch of a pretty boy pulling to tatters the petals of a rose, and the gray-haired dealer, although he had kindly eyes under his bristling eyebrows, behind his glistening spectacles, shook his head.
“I am sorry,” he said: so many of these hopeful young fellows brought him their loved work, and he had so often, but never untruthfully, to say that he was sorry. “I am very sorry, but this is not the real you, monsieur. The values—you know better than that. The composition—it is unworthy of you, M. Cartarette.”
Cartaret was in no mood to try elsewhere. He wanted to fling the thing into the Seine. He certainly did not want Houdon to see him return with it. Might he leave it with Fourget? Perhaps some customer might see and care for it?