He expressed his desire to see the Gérôme, and followed Bessie’s rustling wake into the Moorish room. The little room was warm, with its handful of fire, and softly lit with chased and perforated lanterns of bronze and brass. The heat had drawn the perfume from the bowls full of roses and violets that stood about and the air was impregnated with their sweetness. The Gérôme, a scene in the interior of a harem, with a woman dancing, stood on an easel in one corner. “That’s it,” said Bessie, drawing to one side that he might see it better. “One on the same sort of subject was in the studio when we first went there, but Mr. Shackleton thought it was too small, and this was painted to order.” “Superb,” murmured Essex; “Gérôme at his best.” “We hoped,” continued Bessie, sinking into a seat, “to have a fine collection, and build a gallery for them out in the garden. There was plenty of room, and they would have shown off better all together that way, rather than scattered about like this. But I’ve no ambition to do it now, and they’ll stay as they are.” “Why don’t you go on with the collection?” said the young man, taking a seat on a square stool of carved teak wood. “It would be a most interesting thing to do, and you could go abroad every year or two, and go to the studios and buy direct from the artists. It’s much the best way.” “Oh, I couldn’t,” she said, with a little shrug; “I don’t know enough about it. I only know what I like, and I generally like the wrong thing. I’m not versatile like my husband. When I first came to California I didn’t know a chromo from an oil painting. In fact,” she said, looking at him frankly and laughing a little, “I don’t think I’d ever seen an oil painting.” Essex returned the laugh and murmured a word or two of complimentary disbelief. He was wondering when she would get to the real subject of conversation which had led them to the Gérôme and the Moorish room. She was nearer than he thought. “It would be a temptation to go to Paris every year or two,” she said. “That’s the most delightful place in the world. It’s your home, isn’t it? So, of course, you agree with me.” “Yes, I was born there, and have lived there off and on ever since. To me, there is only one Paris.” “And can you fancy any one having the chance to go there, and live and study, with no trouble about money, refusing?” Essex looked into the fire, and responded in a tone that suggested polite indifference: “No, that’s quite beyond my powers of imagination.” “I have a sort of--I think you call it protégée--isn’t that the word?--yes”--in answer to his nod--“whom I want to send to Paris. She’s a young girl with a fine voice. Mr. Shackleton was very much interested in her. He knew her father in the mining days of the early fifties and wanted to pay off some old scores by helping the daughter. And now the daughter seems to dislike being helped.”