“And you want to exhibit it?”
“At the Salon.”
“But, Sylvestre, it is too late to send in to the Salon. The Ides of March are long past.”
“Yes, for that very reason I have had the devil of a time, intriguing all the morning. With a large picture I never should have succeeded; but with a bit of a sketch, six inches by nine—”
“Bribery of officials, then?”
“Followed by substitution, which is strictly forbidden. I happened to have hung there between two engravings a little sketch of underwoods not unlike this; one comes down, the other is hung instead—a little bit of jobbery of which I am still ashamed. I risked it all for you, in the hope that she would come and recognize the subject.”
“Of course she will recognize it, and understand; how on earth could she help it? My dear Sylvestre, how can I thank you?”
I seized my friend’s hand and begged his forgiveness for my foolish haste of speech.
He, too, was a little touched and overcome by the pleasure his surprise had given me.
“Look here, Plumet,” he said to the frame-maker, who had taken the sketch over to the light, and was studying it with a professional eye. “This young man has even a greater interest than I in the matter. He is a suitor for the lady’s hand, and you can be very useful to him. If you do not frame the picture his happiness is blighted.”