The Pagan Madonna - Page 92/141

What was she going to ask of his father when the time came for reparation?

That puzzled him.

He made the rounds steadily for an hour, and during this time Jane

frequently looked over the top of the manuscript she was reading aloud. At

length she laid the manuscript upon her knees.

"Mr. Cleigh, what is it that makes art treasures so priceless?"

"Generally the depth of the buyer's purse. That is what they say of me in

the great auction rooms."

"But you don't buy them just because you are rich enough to outbid

somebody else?"

"No, I am actually fond of all the treasures I possess. Aside from this,

it is the most fascinating game there is. The original! A painting that

Holbein laid his own brushes on, mixed his own paint for! I have then

something of the man, tangible, visible; something of his beautiful

dreams, his poverty, his success. There before me is the authentic labour

of his hand, which was guided by the genius of his brain--before machinery

spoiled mankind. Oh, yes, machinery has made me rich! It has given the

proletariat the privilege of wearing yellow diamonds and riding about in

flivvers. That must be admitted. But to have lived in those days when

ambition thought only in beauty! To have been the boon companions of men

like Da Vinci, Cellini, Michelangelo! Then there are the adventures of

this concrete dream of the artist. I can trace it back to the bare studio

in which it was conceived, follow its journeys, its abiding places, down

to the hour it comes to me."

Jane stared at him astonishedly. All that had been crampedly hidden in his

soul flowed into his face, warming and mellowing it, even beautifying it.

Cleigh went on: "Where will it go when I have done my little span? What new adventures lie

in store for it? Across the Ponte Vecchio in Florence runs a gallery of

portraits: at the south end of this gallery there is or was a corner given

over to a copyist. He strikes you dumb with the cleverness of his work,

but he has only an eye and a hand--he hasn't a soul. A copy is to the

original what a dummy is to a live man, no matter how amazingly well done

the copy is. The original, the dream; nothing else satisfies the true

collector."

"I didn't know," said Jane, "that you had so much romance in you."

"Romance?" It was almost a bark.

"Why, certainly. No human being could love beauty the way you do and not

be romantic."