The Romance of Giovanni Calvotti | Page 5

was old-fashioned and precise in her attire, and she is perhaps forty years of age, but her face is as beautiful as a seraph's. She is calm and sweet and quiet. She is like a Venetian night--sweet and venerable, and moving to touches of soft music. I took tea with them both--a simple meal. We talked of art and of Italy. I brought down my sketches and my violin at their request. I played to them--all manner of things--and they did me the honour to be delighted.
I am now in my own room again, and have expended my last candle whilst I have given myself the charming task to set down this day's adventures. My candle is so nearly burned out that it will not last another minute. I foresee that I shall go to bed in the----
CHAPTER II.
--ON THE SECOND FLOOR.
I have just found this manuscript among my music, and to charm a lonely evening I will continue it. I remember that the candle went out so suddenly that I lost the place of my pen, or I would have completed the sentence. In the morning I had other things to think of. My landlady came up for the picture and took it away. In five minutes I heard a step upon the stairs, and opening my door I saw Cecilia--I have not told you my little English angel's name until now--with the picture in her hands. For a moment I thought that my inestimable uncle had refused to accept it, but I saw by her smiling face that it was no misfortune which had brought her back.
'There is a gentleman downstairs, signor, who wishes to buy your picture. He is waiting in the hall. Shall I send him up? It is the gentleman who jumped from the cab yesterday and caused the accident.'
I besought her not to take so much trouble, and myself ran downstairs. There was an Englishman, broad-shouldered, ruddy, and iron-grey, with bushy eyebrows and blue eyes and a square chin.
'Do you wish to see me, sir?' I asked him.
'If you're the painter of the picture I saw just now--yes.'
'It is something of a climb upstairs,' I warned him.
He took the warning as an invitation, and went upstairs, stepping firmly and solidly in his heavy boots. When he reached my room, he took his hat off and I saw he was bald. He had a good face, and a high forehead, and he was evidently of the prosperous middle classes. Mademoiselle had left the room, and had placed the picture upon the easel. He looked round the room, and then faced the picture, square and business-like--like an Englishman.
'Ah!' he said, 'that's the picture, is it? H'm. What do you want for it?'
I told him I had never yet sold a picture, and did not know what price to set upon it.
'What have you done with the rest?' he said, looking round the room again. 'This isn't the first you've painted.'
His bluntness amused me, and I laughed. He saw my circumstances, and there could be no service in disguise. I told him of my estimable Uncle.
'H'm?' he said, lifting his eyebrows. Then suddenly, 'What do you get on 'em?'
'Twelve and sixpence each.'
'How many has he got?'
'Nine,' I answered.
'Got the tickets?' he said, examining the picture on the easel.
I produced them from a drawer.
'Five pounds fourteen,' he said to himself. 'A pound 'll pay the interest. Call it six ten, roughly. Got anybody you can send out for 'em?'
I rang the bell, and by-and-by my landlady appeared.
'Look here,' said the stranger, taking out a purse. 'Take this six pounds ten and that lot of pawn tickets, and send somebody to the pawnbroker's to bring the pictures out.'
My landlady took the money and went downstairs. In ten minutes she came back again with a boy behind her, carrying all my canvas children home again. During this time the stranger said nothing. Now he took the change in silver and copper from my landlady, said 'Eight,' and nothing more, and then set the pictures one by one on the easel and looked at them all in turn. When he had satisfied himself, he turned on me again.
'Now, Signor----'
'Calvotti'--I helped him with my name.
'Now, Signor Calvotti, what do you want for the lot?'
I entered into his business humour as well as I could.
'Permit me to ask what you are prepared to give?'
'Oh,' he said emphatically, 'I can't be buyer and seller. How much for the lot?'
I thought it over. I knew the pictures were good--that they were better than many I had seen sold for high prices. I spoke quietly, but with inward desperation.
'A hundred pounds.'
My landlady clasped her hands.
'What?' said the stranger sharply. 'Say seventy-five.'
My landlady absolutely curtsied, with her hands clasped.
'If you think that is a fair price,' I