“Well, what I wanted to tell you is this: One day while I was there, some dealer dropped in with a small picture which for some reason took his fancy. According to Beseroe, it wasn’t such a bad thing, painted by a Swedish realist by the name of Dargson. It showed a rather worn-out woman of about forty-three who had committed suicide and was lying on a bed, one hand stretched out over the edge and a glass or bottle from which she had taken the poison lying on the floor beside her. Two young children and a man were standing near, commiserating themselves on their loss, I presume. It seemed to have a tremendous impression on Osterman for some reason or other. I could never understand why—it was not so much art as a comment on human suffering. Nevertheless, Osterman wanted it, but I think he wanted Nadia to buy it for her collection and so justify his opinion of it. But Nadia, according to Beseroe, was interested only in certain pictures as illustrations of the different schools and periods of art in different countries. And when the dealer approached her with the thing, at Osterman’s suggestion, it was immediately rejected by her. At once Osterman bought it for himself, and to show that he was not very much concerned about her opinion he hung it in his bedroom. Thereafter he began to be quarrelsome in regard to the worthwhileness of the gallery idea as a whole and to object to so much money being squandered in that direction. But to this day no one seems to know just why he liked that particular picture so much. “What I personally know is that it was just about this time that Osterman began to be interested in that fellow Klippert and his plan for improving the condition of the orphan. He finally turned him over to me with the request that I go into the idea thoroughly, not only in regard to the work done by the Gratiot Home but by orphan asylums in general in America. He told us that he wanted it all kept very quiet until he was ready to act, that if anything was said he would refuse to have anything further to do with it. That was a part of his plan to outwit Mrs. Osterman, of course. He told us that he wanted some scheme in connection with orphans that would be new and progressive, better than anything now being done, something that would do away with great barracks and crowd regulations and cheap ugly uniforms and would introduce a system of education and home life in cottages. I had no idea then that he was planning the immense thing that was really in his mind, and neither did Klippert. He thought he might be intending to furnish enough money to revive the Gratiot Home as an experiment, and he urged me to use my influence to this end if I had any. As it turned out, he wanted to establish an interstate affair, as wide as the nation, of which the place at Shell Cove was to be the centre or head—a kind of Eastern watering-place or resort for orphans from all over America. It was a colossal idea and would have taken all of his money and more.