"Who can that be?" Jack muttered.
He pulled a cord that turned the gas higher in the big circlet of jets overhead, and opened the door curiously. The man who entered the studio was a complete stranger, and it was certain that he was not an Englishman, if dress and appearance could decide that fact. He was very tall and well-built, with a handsome face, so deeply tanned as to suggest a recent residence in a tropical country. His mustaches were twisted into waxed points, and there was a good deal of gray in his beard, which was parted German fashion in the middle, and carefully brushed to each side. His top hat was unmistakably French, with a flat rim, and his boots were of patent leather. As he opened his long caped cloak, the collar of which he kept turned up, it was seen that he was in evening dress.
"Do I address Monsieur Vernon, the artist?" he asked in good English, with a French accent.
"Yes, that's right."
"Formerly Monsieur John Clare?"
"I once bore that name," said Jack, with a start of surprise; he was ill-pleased to hear it after so many years.
The visitor produced a card bearing the name of M. Felix Marchand, Parc Monceaux, Paris.
"I do not recall you," said Jack. "Will you take a seat."
"We have not met until now," said M. Marchand, "but I have the honor to be familiar with your work, and to possess some of it. Pictures are to me a delight—I confess myself a humble patron of art—and a few years ago I purchased several water-color sketches signed by your name. They appealed to me especially because they were bits of Paris—one looking down the river from the bridge of the Carrousel, and the other a night impression of Montmartre."
"I remember them vaguely," said Jack. "They, with others, were sold for me by a dealer named Cambon—"