第45章

"You're right." The mask suddenly dropped from Mr. Graham's face; he was no longer merely an art merchant; he was also an art enthusiast.

"Hunt has struck something bold and fresh, and I think I can put him over. I'll try that scheme you mentioned. Tell me where I can find him and I'll see him at once."

"That picture has got to be sold before I give you his address. No use seeing him until then; he'd laugh at you, and not listen to anything.

He's sore at the world; thinks it doesn't understand him. An actual sale would be the only argument that would have weight with him."

"All right--I'll buy the picture myself. Hunt and I have had a falling out, and I'd like him to have proof that I believe in him." Again Mr. Graham was the art merchant. "Though, of course, I can't pay the five thousand you ask. Hunt's new manner may catch on, and it may not. It's a big gamble."

"What will you pay?"

"What you paid for it--three thousand."

"That's an awful drop from what I expected. When can you pay it?"

"I'll send you my check by an assistant as soon as I get back to my place."

"I told you I was squeezed financially--so the picture is yours. I'll send you Mr. Hunt's present address when I receive your check. Make it payable to 'cash.'"

When Mr. Graham had gone with the Italian mother--it was then the very end of the afternoon--Larry wondered if his plan to draw Hunt out of his hermitage was going to succeed; and wondered what would be the result, if any, upon the relationship between Hunt and Miss Sherwood if Hunt should come openly back into his world an acclaimed success, and come with the changed attitude toward every one and every thing that recognition bestows.

But something was to make Larry wonder even more a few minutes later.

Dick, that habitual late riser, had had to hurry away that morning without speaking to him. Now, when he came home toward six o'clock, Dick shouted cheerily from the hallway:

"Ahoy! Where you anchored, Captain Nemo?"

Larry did not answer. He sat over his papers as one frozen. He knew now whose had been the elusively familiar voice he had heard outside Maggie's door. It was Dick Sherwood's.

Dick paused without to take some messages from Judkins, and Larry's mind raced feverishly. Dick Sherwood was the victim Maggie and Barney and Old Jimmie were so cautiously and elaborately trying to trim! It seemed an impossible coincidence. But no, not impossible, after all.

Their net had been spread for just such game: a young man, impressionable, pleasure-loving, with plenty of money, and with no strings tied to his spending of it. That Barney should have made his acquaintance was easily explained; to establish acquaintance with such persons as Dick was Barney's specialty. What more natural than that the high-spirited, irresponsible Dick should fall into this trap?--or indeed that he should have been picked out in advance as the ideal victim and have been drawn into it?

"Hello, there!" grumbled Dick, entering. "Why didn't you answer a shipmate's hail?"

"I heard you; but just then I was adding a column of figures, and I knew you'd look in."

At that moment Larry noted the portrait of Maggie, looking up from the chair beside him. With a swiftness which he tried to disguise into a mechanical action, he seized the painting and rolled it up, face inside.

"What's that you've got?" demanded Dick.

"Just a little daub of my own."