“How shall I show them?” she asked in a moderated voice which he first accepted as awe, but later remembered to be based on ordinary caution. “Just as they come,” he told her, as casually as he could, intent on impressing her with that sustained deliberateness which one expects of the critic. “One at a time, if you can manage them. And I’ll tell you when to change.” She showed him first what must have been a small collection of family portraits, for only lineal ties and obligations, he felt, could extenuate the somber monstrosities which silently anathematized him from their dusty frames. “These don’t count, of course,” she said, noticing the absence of all approval from his intent face. He could see the excitement under which she was laboring, for all her restraint. He felt vaguely yet persistently sorry for her. It was not an auspicious beginning, and he would have to be more circumspect, more non-committal. For whatever happened, however things turned out, it was going to mean more to her than he had imagined. “This,” she said in little more than a whisper as she placed a small canvas for his inspection, “is the Holbein.” He stepped forward a little, apparently to study it more intently. But the movement was scarcely necessary, for he saw almost at a glance that the thing was nothing more than a copy by an ordinarily adept student. More than once, in fact, he had sat before the original in Munich. But he wondered how he was going to tell her. Her questioning eye, in fact, was already on his face. So after deliberately prolonging his study he merely nodded his head. “The next, please,” he said with judicial matter-of-factness. “This is one of the Constables,” she quietly told him, catching her cue from that achieved impersonality of his. His heart went down as he examined it, for it stood a confirmation of his earlier fears. The canvas in front of him was a copy, and nothing more. It was a much cleverer copy than the first one. But that scarcely excused the effrontery of the forgery, for the painting was signed. On the frame, too, was a lettered medallion, soberly attempting to authenticate it as a Constable. “This was your father’s collection, was it not?” he asked the girl. “Yes,” she told him. “And he was an artist as well as a collector?” She shook her head. “He was not a good artist. But he loved pictures.” “And these he brought back with him after his different visits to Europe?” “I think that was it, but my aunt has always refused to talk about them.” “Why?” “She hated my father. She blames him for all the troubles that have come into her life.” “And now she takes that hate out on you?” The girl did not answer his question. Instead, she placed a smaller canvas for his inspection and said: “Would you care to see the Corot now?”