The Pagan Madonna - Page 97/141

Jane admired the rug, but she would have preferred the gold. Her sense of

the beautiful was alive, but there was always in her mind the genteel

poverty of the past. She was beginning to understand. To go in quest of

the beautiful required an unlimited purse and an endless leisure; and she

would have never the one nor the other.

"How much gold would that be?" she inquired, naïvely.

"Nearly eighty thousand. Have you kept in mind the sums I have given

you?"

"Yes. Let me see--good heavens, a quarter of a million! But why do you

carry them about like this?"

"Because I'm something of a rogue myself. I could not enjoy the rug and

the paintings except on board. The French, the Italian, and the Spanish

governments could confiscate every solitary painting except the Meissonier

and the Detaille, for the simple reason that they were stolen. Oh, I did

not steal them myself; I merely purchased them with one eye shut. If I

hadn't bought them they would have gone to some other collector. Do you

get a glimmer of the truth now?"

"The truth?"--perplexedly.

"Yes--where Cunningham will get his pearls?"--bitterly.

"Oh!"

"And I could not touch him. A quarter of a million! And with his knowledge

of the secret marts he could easily dispose of them. Worth a bold stroke,

eh?"

"But how will he get them off the yacht--transship them?"

Her faith in Cunningham began to waver. A quarter of a million! The

thought was as bells in her ears.

"Of the outside issues I have no inkling. But I have shown you his

pearls."

"But the crew! Certainly they will not return to any port with us. And why

should he lie to me? There is no reason in the world why he shouldn't

have told me, if he had committed piracy to obtain your paintings. And he

was poring over maps."

"Some tramp is probably going to pick him up. He's ordered us away from

the wireless. Cunningham must have his joke, so he is beguiling you with

twaddle about hunting pearls. He is robbing me of my treasures, and I

can't strike back on that count. But I can land him in prison on the count

of piracy; and by the Lord Harry, I'll do it if it takes my last dollar!

He'll rue this adventure, or they call me Tungsten for nothing!"

"I wanted so to believe in him!"

"Not difficult to understand why. He has a silver tongue and a face like

John the Baptist--del Sarto's--and you are romantic. The picture of him

has enlisted your sympathies. You are filled with pity that he should be

so richly endowed, facially and mentally, and to be a cripple such as

children laugh over."