‘You are right. I parted with my delusion quietly enough, though it had brightened my boyhood, and kept me alive during five weary years. As I could not be a painter of pictures, I determined to be a dealer in them, and began life once more in a little den of a shop, in a court near Leicester-square—began with ten pounds for my capital; bought a bit of old china for three-and-sixpence, and sold it for ten shillings; had an occasional stroke of luck as time went by; once picked up a smoke-darkened picture of a piggery, which turned out an indisputable Morland; went everywhere and saw everything that was to be seen in the shape of pictures and ceramic ware; lived in an atmosphere of art, and brought to bear upon my petty trade a genuine passion for art, which stood me in good stead against bigwigs whose knowledge was only technical. In four years I had a stock worth three thousand pounds, and was able to open a shop in Bond-street. A man with a window in Bond-street must be an arrant ass if he can’t make money. The dilettanti found me out, and discovered that I had received the education of a gentleman. Young men about town made my shop a lounge. I sold them the choicest brands of cigars, under the rose, and occasionally lent them money; for which I charged them about half the interest they would have paid a professed usurer. My profits were reinvested in fresh stock as fast as they accumulated. I acquired a reputation for judgment and taste; and, in a word, I succeeded; which I should never have done had I insisted upon thinking myself a neglected Raphael.’ ‘I thank you for your history, more interesting to my mind than any object in your collection. I do not wonder that you were loth to part with the gems of art you had slowly gathered. But had none of your children the inclination to continue so fascinating a trade?’ ‘My children!’ repeated Homer Sivewright, with a gloomy look; ‘I have no children. When you talk to a stranger, Mr. Davoren, beware of commonplace questions. They sometimes gall a raw spot.’ ‘Pardon me; only seeing that interesting young lady—your granddaughter—’ ‘That granddaughter represents all my kindred upon earth. I _had_ a son—that girl’s father. But there is not a figure carved on yonder oaken choir-stalls of less account to me than that son is now.’ Lucius was silent. He had been unlucky enough to stumble upon the threshold of a family mystery. Yes, he had fancied some touch of sadness, some vague shadow of a quiet grief, in that sweet young face. The child of a disgraced father; her gentle spirit even yet weighed down by the memory of some ancient shame. He thought of the sorrow that had darkened his own youth—the bitter memory which haunted him even yet—the memory of his lost sister.