Crucial Instances

That evening at my club I had just succeeded in losing sight of Mrs. Fontage in the fumes of an excellent cigar, when a voice at my elbow evoked her harassing image.

“I want to talk to you,” the speaker said, “about Mrs. Fontage’s Rembrandt.”

“There isn’t any,” I was about to growl; but looking up I recognized the confiding countenance of Mr. Jefferson Rose.

Mr. Rose was known to me chiefly as a young man suffused with a vague enthusiasm for Virtue and my cousin Eleanor.

One glance at his glossy exterior conveyed the assurance that his morals were as immaculate as his complexion and his linen.  Goodness exuded from his moist eye, his liquid voice, the warm damp pressure of his trustful hand.  He had always struck me as one of the most uncomplicated organisms I had ever met.  His ideas were as simple and inconsecutive as the propositions in a primer, and he spoke slowly, with a kind of uniformity of emphasis that made his words stand out like the raised type for the blind.  An obvious incapacity for abstract conceptions made him peculiarly susceptible to the magic of generalization, and one felt he would have been at the mercy of any Cause that spelled itself with a capital letter.  It was hard to explain how, with such a superabundance of merit, he managed to be a good fellow:  I can only say that he performed the astonishing feat as naturally as he supported an invalid mother and two sisters on the slender salary of a banker’s clerk.  He sat down beside me with an air of bright expectancy.

“It’s a remarkable picture, isn’t it?” he said.

“You’ve seen it?”

“I’ve been so fortunate.  Miss Copt was kind enough to get Mrs. Fontage’s permission; we went this afternoon.”  I inwardly wished that Eleanor had selected another victim; unless indeed the visit were part of a plan whereby some third person, better equipped for the cultivation of delusions, was to be made to think the Rembrandt remarkable.  Knowing the limitations of Mr. Rose’s resources I began to wonder if he had any rich aunts.

“And her buying it in that way, too,” he went on with his limpid smile, “from that old Countess in Brussels, makes it all the more interesting, doesn’t it?  Miss Copt tells me it’s very seldom old pictures can be traced back for more than a generation.  I suppose the fact of Mrs. Fontage’s knowing its history must add a good deal to its value?”

Uncertain as to his drift, I said:  “In her eyes it certainly appears to.”

Implications are lost on Mr. Rose, who glowingly continued:  “That’s the reason why I wanted to talk to you about it—­to consult you.  Miss Copt tells me you value it at a thousand dollars.”

There was no denying this, and I grunted a reluctant assent.

“Of course,” he went on earnestly, “your valuation is based on the fact that the picture isn’t signed—­Mrs. Fontage explained that; and it does make a difference, certainly.  But the thing is—­if the picture’s really good—­ought one to take advantage—?  I mean—­one can see that Mrs. Fontage is in a tight place, and I wouldn’t for the world—­”

My astonished stare arrested him.

“You wouldn’t—?”

“I mean—­you see, it’s just this way”; he coughed and blushed:  “I can’t give more than a thousand dollars myself—­it’s as big a sum as I can manage to scrape together—­but before I make the offer I want to be sure I’m not standing in the way of her getting more money.”

My astonishment lapsed to dismay.  “You’re going to buy the picture for a thousand dollars?”

His blush deepened.  “Why, yes.  It sounds rather absurd, I suppose.  It isn’t much in my line, of course.  I can see the picture’s very beautiful, but I’m no judge—­it isn’t the kind of thing, naturally, that I could afford to go in for; but in this case I’m very glad to do what I can; the circumstances are so distressing; and knowing what you think of the picture I feel it’s a pretty safe investment—­”

“I don’t think!” I blurted out.

“You—?”

“I don’t think the picture’s worth a thousand dollars; I don’t think it’s worth ten cents; I simply lied about it, that’s all.”

Mr. Rose looked as frightened as though I had charged him with the offense.

“Hang it, man, can’t you see how it happened?  I saw the poor woman’s pride and happiness hung on her faith in that picture.  I tried to make her understand that it was worthless—­but she wouldn’t; I tried to tell her so—­but I couldn’t.  I behaved like a maudlin ass, but you shan’t pay for my infernal bungling—­you mustn’t buy the picture!”

Mr. Rose sat silent, tapping one glossy boot-tip with another.  Suddenly he turned on me a glance of stored intelligence.  “But you know,” he said good-humoredly, “I rather think I must.”

“You haven’t—­already?”

“Oh, no; the offer’s not made.”

“Well, then—­”

His look gathered a brighter significance.

“But if the picture’s worth nothing, nobody will buy it—­”

I groaned.

“Except,” he continued, “some fellow like me, who doesn’t know anything. I think it’s lovely, you know; I mean to hang it in my mother’s sitting-room.”  He rose and clasped my hand in his adhesive pressure.  “I’m awfully obliged to you for telling me this; but perhaps you won’t mind my asking you not to mention our talk to Miss Copt?  It might bother her, you know, to think the picture isn’t exactly up to the mark; and it won’t make a rap of difference to me.”