During the forenoon and early afternoon several women came into the galleries; and they seemed to be a little different from ordinary women, although it would be hard to say wherein they were different except in one instance—a tall, darkly handsome girl whose jewellery was as conspicuously oriental as her brilliant colour.
Later Quarren told Jessie Vining that they were expert buyers on commission or brokers having clients among those very wealthy people who bought pictures now and then because it was fashionable to do so. Also, these same women-brokers represented a number of those unhappy old families who, incognito, were being forced by straitened circumstances to part secretly with heirlooms—family plate, portraits, miniatures, furniture—even with the antique mirrors on the walls and the very fire-dogs on the hearth amid the ashes of a burnt-out race almost extinct.
A few Jews came—representing the extreme types of the most wonderful race of people in the world—one tall, handsome, immaculate young man whose cultivated accent, charming manners, and quiet bearing challenged exception—and one or two representing the other extreme, loud, restless, aggressive, and as impertinent as they dared be, discussing the canvases in noisy voices and with callous manners verging always on the offensive.
These evinced a disposition for cash deals and bargain-wrangling, discouraged good-naturedly by Quarren who referred them to the catalogue; and presently they took themselves off.
Dankmere sidled up to Quarren rather timidly toward the close of the afternoon.
"I don't see what bally good I am in this business," he said. "I don't mean to shirk, Quarren, but there doesn't seem to be anything for me to do. I think that all these beggars spot me for an ignoramus the moment they lay eyes on me, and the whole thing falls on you."
Quarren said laughingly: "Well, didn't you furnish the stock?"
"We ought to go halves," muttered Dankmere, shyly skirting Jessie Vining's domain where she was writing letters with the Social Register at her elbow.
The last days of June and the first of July were repetitions in a measure of the opening day at the Dankmere Galleries; people came and were received and entertained by Quarren; Dankmere sat about in various chairs or retired furtively to the backyard to smoke at intervals; Jessie Vining with more colour in her pale, oval face, ruled her corner of the room in a sort of sweet and silent dignity.