“Perhaps the Luxembourg did not offer—in the person of M. Fourget?”
The last vestige of his pride left Cartaret.
“He wanted to buy those portraits,” he said. “I know that my action loses by the telling of it whatever virtue it might have had, but I’d rather have that happen than have you think what you’ve been thinking. He offered me more for them than for all my other pictures together, but I couldn’t sell.”
It was a mood not to be denied: she forgave him.
“But you, sir, must take them all down,” she said, “and you must promise to paint no more of them.”
He would have promised anything: he promised this, and he had an immediate reward.
“To-morrow,” she asked, “perhaps you will eat déjeuner with Chitta and me?”
Would he! He did not know that she invited him because of Fourget’s use of the phrase “starving literally.” He accepted, declaring that he would never more call Friday unlucky.
“At eleven o’clock?” she asked.
“At eleven,” he bowed.