"I can entertain no reasonable doubt that your voice is a fiction of my imagination. But you will confer a substantial favour on me if you will take advantage of it, while my hallucination lasts, to tell me the name of your author—of the artist who painted you."
"Lo Spazzolone painted me."
"Lo ... who?"
"Lo Spazzolone. Surely, all men have heard of him. But it is his nickname—the big brush—from his great bush of black hair. Ah me!—how beautiful it was!"
"Could you give me his real name, and tell me something about him?" Mr. Pelly took from his pocket a notebook and pencil.
"Giacinto Boldrini, of course!"
"Ought I to know him? I have never heard his name."
"How strange! And it is but the other day that he was murdered—oh, so foully murdered! But no!—I am wrong, and I forget. It is near four hundred years ago."
Mr. Pelly was deeply interested. The question of whether this was a dream, a hallucination, or a vision, or the result of exceeding by two ounces his usual allowance of glasses of Madeira, he could not answer offhand. Besides, there would be plenty of time for that after. His present object should be to let nothing slip, however much he felt convinced of its illusory character. It could be sifted later. He would be passive, and not allow an ill-timed incredulity to mar a good delusion in the middle. He switched off scepticism for the time being, and spoke sympathetically.
"Is it possible? Did you know him? But of course you must have known him, or he could scarcely have painted you. Dear me!" Mr. Pelly checked a disposition to gasp; that would never do—he might wake himself up, and spoil all. The sweet voice of the picture—it was like a voice, mind you, not like a gramophone—was prompt with its reply: