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--“ III 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.