White Ashes | Page 3

that the company's system of espionage was reputed to be so nearly perfect that I doubted whether I could make the position pay--that is, pay as it ought. And you know, Isabel," he added, "that with all due respect to my esteemed relation, he's exceedingly awkward to get anything out of. Can either of you gentlemen," he turned to the others, "suggest anything along these lines? I would be willing to pay a liberal commission."
"Well," said the painter, "if he wanted to buy a Caneletto cheap, I know where you could pick one up for him. It would rather damage my reputation to recommend him to buy it, but you could do it all right, Charlie. Guaranteed authentic by European experts--they're easily fixed. And if he didn't like the Caneletto, you could get him a very fair Franz Hals--by the same artist."
Miss Hurd, whose feelings had not been in the least lacerated by the reference to her parent's notable eccentricity of retentiveness, but who had been amused at the suggestion, interposed.
"I'm afraid it couldn't be done," she said. "Louis von Glauber passes on every picture that father buys."
"That settles that, then," Pelgram rejoined.
"Well, Benny, anything to suggest?" Wilkinson inquired.
"I don't know," said Cole, slowly. The germ of an idea had flashed on him. "I don't know," he repeated. The impecunious one regarded him attentively.
"My dear Benny, an unconvincing prevarication is of less practical value than--" he began, but he was interrupted by the appearance of a young lady who came through the doorway.
The three men rose quickly, and even the languid face of Stanwood Pelgram took on a look of a little sharper interest than he had so far shown. From the tea table Miss Hurd cordially greeted the newcomer.
"Tea, Helen?" she asked. "You're quite late. What have you been doing?"
"Thank you, Isabel," the other replied. "Quite strong, and with sugar and lemon--both." She sat down and commenced to pull off her long gloves. "I've been helping Cousin Henrietta Lyons select wall papers for her new apartment. I still live, but I've had a very trying time."
"Was it so difficult?" Bennington Cole asked politely. He did not know her very well.
"Well," responded Miss Maitland, "I can think of nothing more difficult than selecting wall papers--excepting, perhaps, Cousin Henrietta Lyons. As I picked out her papers, I think I'm entitled to abuse her," she explained with some feeling. "Wall papers in themselves are bad enough." She paused.
"Well, they ought to be," Wilkinson cheerfully put in, adroitly diverting the attack from Miss Lyons. "I understand that most of them are designed by individuals who have failed to succeed as sign painters on account of color-blindness, or by draughtsmen who have lost their positions because of the paramount influence of epilepsy on their work."
"I should estimate that they have about twenty-eight thousand samples at Heminway and Shipman's," the girl continued. "Cousin Henrietta possesses a fine old spirit of thoroughness which made it necessary for us to see them all. We sat on a red plush sofa while a truly affable young man kept flopping the sheets of samples over the back of an easel. That is, he was truly affable for an hour or two; after that he grew a little reticent. At first some of the samples interested me. There was one design of a row of cockatoos, each one standing on a wreath of lilacs, that was fascinating, and I liked one that looked like a flock of nectarines hiding in the interstices of a steam radiator. The young man made encouraging suggestions at first, but at the last, scarcely,--although I was so nearly stupefied that I doubt whether I would have heard him even if he had said what he really thought." She took up her cup. "But the walk here did me a lot of good--I walked fast."
"Where your cousin made her mistake," Wilkinson observed, "was in going in for wall papers at all. She should have abandoned the idea of papering her walls, and retained our talented friend, Stanwood Pelgram, to paint them, instead. A splendid conception! How I should like to have attended the pirate view of Miss Lyons's flat, when the last coat of distemper had dried on the parlor ceiling and Stanwood had put the affectionate finishing touches on the decorative panel portrait of Lucretia Borgia in the oval above the kitchen stove! The whole thing would have been a magnificent and unusual symbol of the triumph of paint over paper--a new and vivid illustration of the practical value of true art."
"Oh, nonsense, Charlie!" said Pelgram, much annoyed at being made the rather vulnerable subject of Wilkinson's humor.
His tormentor was delighted at perceiving his victim writhe and went gayly on.
"But unhappily our Stanwood is so impractical. Probably he would have declined the commission. Atmospheric envelopes