"The money. Five hundred. But I dare say they would take four, and perhaps three. It is a real Murillo, they say. Everybody says."
"Jessie, I think it would be extravagance."
"Extravagance! Five hundred dollars for a Murillo! Why, everybody says it is no price at all."
"Not for the Murillo; but for a wall panel, I think it is. What do you say, Miss Lothrop, to panelling a room at five hundred dollars the panel?"
"Miss Lothrop's experience in panels would hardly qualify her to answer you," Mrs. Burrage said, with a polite covert sneer.
"Miss Lothrop has experience in some other things," Philip returned immoveably. But the appeal put Lois in great embarrassment.
"What is the picture?" she asked, as the best way out of it.
"It's a St. Sebastian," Mrs. Burrage answered shortly.
"Do you know the story?" asked Philip. "He was an officer in the household of the Roman emperor, Diocletian; a Christian; and discovered to be a Christian by his bold and faithful daring in the cause of truth. Diocletian ordered him to be bound to a tree and shot to death with arrows, and that the inscription over his head should state that there was no fault found in him but only that he was a Christian. This picture my sister wants to buy, shows him stripped and bound to the tree, and the executioner's work going on. Arrows are piercing him in various places; and the saint's face is raised to heaven with the look upon it of struggling pain and triumphing faith together. You can see that the struggle is sharp, and that only strength which is not his own enables him to hold out; but you see that he will hold out, and the martyr's palm of victory is even already waving before him."
Lois's eyes eagerly looked into those of the speaker while he went on; then they fell silently. Mrs. Burrage grew impatient.