For a full sixty seconds he received no answer. They all stood there looking at the picture. One of those simple things that can, if well done, be magnificent, it showed a peasant youth and a maid in her middle teens seated among the stubble of a partly mown field. Beside them were their scythes and rake and a rustic lunch basket. Back of them was a shock of wheat and behind that the waving grain. On their faces were smiles and over their faces played the sunlight.
“It’s lovely,” was Norma’s comment.
“It may be a Millet,” Lieutenant Warren said slowly. “Surely it is like his work, but some of the colors are a little strange. There are overtones—”
“To be sure,” Carl Langer laughed hoarsely. “The picture has been neglected. I found it in an old church in a French-Canadian village. I am restoring it.”
Norma saw Lieutenant Warren start and stare. But she said never a word as they left the room.
As they prepared to take tea in the sunny living-room, a small brown man entered with a tray.
“You need not be afraid of Hanada,” said Langer with a forced laugh. “It is true that he is of Japanese blood, but his home is in India. He has never seen Japan.”
At that the little brown man showed all his teeth in a grin.
“I brought him with me from India,” was the hasty reply.
“So you have lived in India? How grand!” Norma exclaimed.