Carlton could not withhold a certain start of surprise. He had not expected that his gift would so soon have arrived, but his face showed only polite attention.
“The studies were delivered to us in London,” continued the Duke. “They are of Ludwig the tragedian, and of the German Prime Minister, two most valuable works, and especially interesting to us. They came without any note or message which would inform us who had sent them, and when my people made inquiries, the dealer refused to tell them from whom they had come. He had been ordered to forward them to Grasse, but, on learning of our presence in London, sent them direct to our hotel there. Of course it is embarrassing to have so valuable a present from an anonymous friend, especially so for my sister, to whom they were addressed, and I thought that, besides the pleasure of meeting one of whose genius I am so warm an admirer, I might also learn something which would enable me to discover who our friend may be.” He paused, but as Carlton said nothing, continued: “As it is now, I do not feel that I can accept the pictures; and yet I know no one to whom they can be returned, unless I send them to the dealer.”
“It sounds very mysterious,” said Carlton, smiling; “and I am afraid I cannot help you. What work I did in Germany was sold in Berlin before I left, and in a year may have changed hands several times. The studies of which you speak are unimportant, and merely studies, and could pass from hand to hand without much record having been kept of them; but personally I am not able to give you any information which would assist you in tracing them.”
“Yes,” said the Duke. “Well, then, I shall keep them until I can learn more; and if we can learn nothing, I shall return them to the dealer.”
Carlton met Miss Morris that afternoon in a state of great excitement. “It’s come!” he cried—“it’s come! I am to meet her this week. I have met her brother, and he has asked me to dine with them on Thursday night; that’s the day before they leave for Athens; and he particularly mentioned that his sisters would be at the dinner, and that it would be a pleasure to present me. It seems that the eldest paints, and all of them love art for art’s sake, as their father taught them to do; and, for all we know, he may make me court painter, and I shall spend the rest of my life at Grasse painting portraits of the Princess Aline, at the age of twenty-two, and at all future ages. And if he does give me a commission to paint her, I can tell you now in confidence that that picture will require more sittings than any other picture ever painted by man. Her hair will have turned white by the time it is finished, and the gown she started to pose in will have become forty years behind the fashion!”
On the morning following, Carlton and Mrs. Downs and her niece, with all the tourists in Constantinople, were placed in open carriages by their dragomans, and driven in a long procession to the Seraglio to see the Sultan’s treasures. Those of them who had waited two weeks for this chance looked aggrieved at the more fortunate who had come at the eleventh hour on the last night’s steamer, and seemed to think these latter had attained the privilege without sufficient effort. The ministers of the different legations—as is the harmless custom of such gentlemen—had impressed every one for whom they had obtained permission to see the treasures with the great importance of the service rendered, and had succeeded in making every one feel either especially honored or especially uncomfortable at having given them so much trouble. This sense of obligation, and the fact that the dragomans had assured the tourists that they were for the time being the guests of the Sultan, awed and depressed most of the visitors to such an extent that their manner in the long procession of carriages suggested a funeral cortege, with the Hohenwalds in front, escorted by Beys and Pashas, as chief mourners. The procession halted at the palace, and the guests of the Sultan were received by numerous effendis in single-button frock-coats and freshly ironed fezzes, who served them with glasses of water, and a huge bowl of some sweet stuff, of which every one was supposed to take a spoonful. There was at first a general fear among the Cook’s tourists that there would not be enough of this to go round, which was succeeded by a greater anxiety lest they should be served twice. Some of the tourists put the sweet stuff in their mouths direct and licked the spoon, and others dropped it off the spoon into the glass of water, and stirred it about and sipped at it, and no one knew who had done the right thing, not even those who happened to have done it. Carlton and Miss Morris went out on to the terrace while this ceremony was going forward, and looked out over the great panorama of waters, with the Sea of Marmora on one side, the Golden Horn on the other, and the Bosporus at their feet. The sun was shining mildly, and the waters were stirred by great and little vessels; before them on the opposite bank rose the dark green cypresses which marked the grim cemetery of England’s dead, and behind them were the great turtle-backed mosques and pencil-like minarets of the two cities, and close at hand the mosaic walls and beautiful gardens of Constantine.
“Your friends the Hohenwalds don’t seem to know you this morning,” she said.
“Oh, yes; he spoke to me as we left the hotel,” Carlton answered. “But they are on parade at present. There are a lot of their countrymen among the tourists.”
“I feel rather sorry for them,” Miss Morris said, looking at the group with an amused smile. “Etiquette cuts them off from so much innocent amusement. Now, you are a gentleman, and the Duke presumably is, and why should you not go over and say, ‘Your Highness, I wish you would present me to your sister, whom I am to meet at dinner to-morrow night. I admire her very much,’ and then you could point out the historical features to her, and show her where they have finished off a blue and green tiled wall with a rusty tin roof, and make pretty speeches to her. It wouldn’t hurt her, and it would do you a lot of good. The simplest way is always the best way, it seems to me.”
“Oh yes, of course,” said Carlton. “Suppose he came over here and said: ‘Carlton, I wish you would present me to your young American friend. I admire her very much.’ I would probably say: ‘Do you? Well, you will have to wait until she expresses some desire to meet you.’ No; etiquette is all right in itself, only some people don’t know its laws, and that is the one instance to my mind where ignorance of the law is no excuse.”