Crucial Instances

Within three weeks a tremulous note from Mrs. Fontage requested the favor of another visit.  If the writing was tremulous, however, the writer’s tone was firm.  She named her own day and hour, without the conventional reference to her visitor’s convenience.

My first impulse was to turn the note over to Eleanor.  I had acquitted myself of my share in the ungrateful business of coming to Mrs. Fontage’s aid, and if, as her letter denoted, she had now yielded to the closer pressure of need, the business of finding a purchaser for the Rembrandt might well be left to my cousin’s ingenuity.  But here conscience put in the uncomfortable reminder that it was I who, in putting a price on the picture, had raised the real obstacle in the way of Mrs. Fontage’s rescue.  No one would give a thousand dollars for the Rembrandt; but to tell Mrs. Fontage so had become as unthinkable as murder.  I had, in fact, on returning from my first inspection of the picture, refrained from imparting to Eleanor my opinion of its value.  Eleanor is porous, and I knew that sooner or later the unnecessary truth would exude through the loose texture of her dissimulation.  Not infrequently she thus creates the misery she alleviates; and I have sometimes suspected her of paining people in order that she might be sorry for them.  I had, at all events, cut off retreat in Eleanor’s direction; and the remaining alternative carried me straight to Mrs. Fontage.

She received me with the same commanding sweetness.  The room was even barer than before—­I believe the carpet was gone—­but her manner built up about her a palace to which I was welcomed with high state; and it was as a mere incident of the ceremony that I was presently made aware of her decision to sell the Rembrandt.  My previous unsuccess in planning how to deal with Mrs. Fontage had warned me to leave my farther course to chance; and I listened to her explanation with complete detachment.  She had resolved to travel for her health; her doctor advised it, and as her absence might be indefinitely prolonged she had reluctantly decided to part with the picture in order to avoid the expense of storage and insurance.  Her voice drooped at the admission, and she hurried on, detailing the vague itinerary of a journey that was to combine long-promised visits to impatient friends with various “interesting opportunities” less definitely specified.  The poor lady’s skill in rearing a screen of verbiage about her enforced avowal had distracted me from my own share in the situation, and it was with dismay that I suddenly caught the drift of her assumptions.  She expected me to buy the Rembrandt for the Museum; she had taken my previous valuation as a tentative bid, and when I came to my senses she was in the act of accepting my offer.

Had I had a thousand dollars of my own to dispose of, the bargain would have been concluded on the spot; but I was in the impossible position of being materially unable to buy the picture and morally unable to tell her that it was not worth acquiring for the Museum.

I dashed into the first evasion in sight.  I had no authority, I explained, to purchase pictures for the Museum without the consent of the committee.

Mrs. Fontage coped for a moment in silence with the incredible fact that I had rejected her offer; then she ventured, with a kind of pale precipitation:  “But I understood—­Miss Copt tells me that you practically decide such matters for the committee.”  I could guess what the effort had cost her.

“My cousin is given to generalizations.  My opinion may have some weight with the committee—­”

“Well, then—­” she timidly prompted.

“For that very reason I can’t buy the picture.”

She said, with a drooping note, “I don’t understand.”

“Yet you told me,” I reminded her, “that you knew museums didn’t buy unsigned pictures.”

“Not for what they are worth!  Every one knows that.  But I—­I understood—­the price you named—­” Her pride shuddered back from the abasement.  “It’s a misunderstanding then,” she faltered.

To avoid looking at her, I glanced desperately at the Rembrandt.  Could I—?  But reason rejected the possibility.  Even if the committee had been blind—­and they all were but Crozier—­I simply shouldn’t have dared to do it.  I stood up, feeling that to cut the matter short was the only alleviation within reach.

Mrs. Fontage had summoned her indomitable smile; but its brilliancy dropped, as I opened the door, like a candle blown out by a draught.

“If there’s any one else—­if you knew any one who would care to see the picture, I should be most happy—­” She kept her eyes on me, and I saw that, in her case, it hurt less than to look at the Rembrandt.  “I shall have to leave here, you know,” she panted, “if nobody cares to have it—­”