"Motive? His motive is pretty obvious after to-day's revelation. He is in love with Daphne, and, being so, he is tormented by two ideas--namely, that she still retains her love for George, and that George himself may yet return to claim her. Therefore, do you think he wishes her to know where George is? Not likely! His plan is to woo and win her before George reappears to spoil his game." "I do not think so. The tearing of that paragraph was an accident." "An accident? Did you not notice this morning how anxious he was to know if we had read this critique; how relieved he seemed when he learned we had not? Singular that he should light his cigar with a bit of newspaper, pretending he could see no matches in the room, when all the time they were staring at him from the mantel! Singular, too, that out of fifty newspapers he should light on the very one in which this eulogy of himself is, and tear the very column containing it, leaving, however, sufficient to show what a great man he has developed into. An accident? Bah! My good uncle, give me credit for a little discernment." "Or--a picturesque imagination. Well, well, if you think the paragraph of such importance, by all means send to England for a copy of the _Standard_ of July 2nd. If there were anything of consequence in it, I feel sure that some friend would have called our attention to it before now." I was silent, and my uncle occupied himself in reading the article again. "I wonder," he remarked, "if there is any truth in the suggestion that some one else painted the picture?" "Can George paint?" I asked: an unnecessary question on my part, for my uncle knew no more of the matter than I. "Never knew him to handle the brush; though it is not unlikely he may have studied painting a little in India, but scarcely to the extent of being able to produce a masterpiece such as we have been reading about." "You remember the date Angelo assigned for his arrival at Paris." "I do. It was the day after we left." "Exactly. And don't you think it strange that he should arrive there the very day after we had taken our departure?" "I see nothing strange in it." "And then, talking of his arrival at Paris, he made use of the plural 'we.' 'We arrived,' he said, and then, suddenly checking himself, he altered it to 'I did not arrive.' Do you remember it?" "I can't say I do." "But I do, though, and wondered at it. Now who are they who compose the 'we'?" "He and his agent, probably; or he and those who were conveying the picture." "If he meant those persons only, why should he check himself so sharply?" My uncle shrugged his shoulders, as if he were growing tired of the subject. "I think, Frank," he said, "that you are attaching too much importance to a trivial expression." "Possibly I may be; but I cannot help thinking that a mystery surrounds the production of Angelo's picture, and that the mystery is in some way connected with George." CHAPTER VIII HIGH MASS AND WHAT HAPPENED AT IT