Read Ebook: Red Masquerade: Being the Story of the Lone Wolf's Daughter by Vance Louis Joseph

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Ebook has 1931 lines and 66861 words, and 39 pages

He was accordingly perplexed when, after a brief exhortation by the auctioneer, discreetly noncommittal as to the antecedents of the canvas--"attributed to Corot"--Prince Victor, who had been straining forward like a hound in leash, half rose in his eagerness to offer:

"One thousand guineas!"

The entire company stirred as one and sat up sharply. Even the auctioneer was momentarily stricken dumb. And for the first time the Princess Sofia acknowledged the presence of her husband, and got from him that look of white hatred with a sneer of triumph thrown in for good measure.

Though she affected indifference, Lanyard saw her slender body transiently shaken by a shudder, it might have been of dread. But she was quick to pull herself together, and the auctioneer had scarcely found his tongue--"One thousand guineas for this magnificent canvas attributed to Corot"--when her clear and youthful voice cut in:

"Two thousand guineas!"

This the prince capped with a monosyllable:

"Three!"

Stupefaction settled upon the audience. The auctioneer hesitated, blinked astonished eyes, framed unspoken phrases with halting lips. Prince Victor, again gave his wife the full value of his vindictive snarl. She would not see, but it was plain that she was cruelly dismayed, that it cost her an effort to rise to the topping bid:

"Thirty-five hundred guineas!"

"Four thousand!"

"Four thousand I am offered ..."

The auctioneer faltered, a spasm of honesty shook him, he proceeded:

"It is only fair, ladies and gentlemen, that I should state that this canvas is not put up as an authentic Corot. It very possibly is such, in fact"--the seizure was passing swiftly--"it bears every evidence of having come from the brush of the master. But we cannot guarantee it. There is, however, a gentleman present who is amply qualified to pass upon the merits of this work. With his permission"--his eye sought Lanyard's--"I venture to request the opinion of Monsieur Michael Lanyard, the noted connoisseur!"

Lanyard detached a deprecating smile from the pages of his catalogue, but his contemplated response was cut short by Prince Victor.

"I am not aware," that one said, icily, "that the authenticity of this painting is a material question. Nor have I any need of the opinion of this gentleman, whatever his qualifications. I have bid four thousand guineas, and insist that the sale proceed. If there are no further bids, the canvas is mine."

The auctioneer shrugged, and offered Lanyard an apologetic bow. "I am sorry--" he began.

"Four thousand guineas!" snapped the prince.

Resigned, the auctioneer resumed:

"Four thousand guineas offered. Are there any more bids? Going--"

"Forty-five hundred!"

Beyond reasonable doubt the princess had spurred herself mercilessly to find sufficient courage to make this latest bid. Lanyard saw her in a rigour of despair, hoping against hope. Only too surely something in the picture, some association--heaven knew what!--was more precious to her, almost, than life, though she had gone already to the limit of her means and perhaps a bit beyond. If this bid failed, she was lost. Her anxiety was pitiful.

"Five thousand!"

In the princess something snapped: she recoiled upon herself, sat crushed, head drooping, white-gloved hands working in her lap. One detected an appealing quiver on her lips, and noted, or imagined, a suspicious brightness beneath the long dark lashes that swiftly screened her eyes. Her young bosom moved convulsively. She was beaten, near to tears.

"Five thousand guineas ... going ... going ..."

The face of the prince was a mocking devil-mask in gray and black. Lanyard found himself loathing it. Impossible to stand idle and see the creature get the better of an unhappy girl ...

"Five thousand one hundred guineas!"

With his wits in a blur of amaze, Lanyard knew the echo of his own voice.

IV THE FOOL AND HIS MONEY

One reflected rather bitterly on the many and obvious oversights of a putatively all-wise Providence, in especial on its failure so to fashion the body of man as to enable him on occasion to discipline his own flesh in the most ignominious manner imaginable.

Lanyard could have kicked himself; that is to say, he wanted to, and thought it rather a pity he couldn't, and publicly, at that. For the freak he had just indulged was rank quixotism, something which had as much place in the code of a man of his calling as milk of human kindness in the management of a pawnshop.

On second thought, he wasn't so sure. It might have been that quixotism had inspired his infatuate gesture, but it might quite as conceivably have been everyday vanity or plain cussedness: a noble impulse to serve a pretty lady in distress, a spontaneous device to engage her interest, or a low desire to plague a personality as antipathetic to his own as that of a rattlesnake.

In point of simple fact , his impelling motive had been a mixture of all three.

In all three respects, furthermore, it proved notably successful; in the two last named without delay.

The Princess Sofia at once took note of Lanyard, with wonder, some misgivings, and a hint of admiration. For he was not only a personable person in those days, with a suggestion of devil-may-care in his air that measurably lifted the curse of his superficial foppishness, but he was putting a spoke in Prince Victor's wheel. And whosoever did that, by chance, out of sheer voluptuousness, or with malice prepense, won immediate title to Sofia's favourable regard. If she couldn't thwart Victor herself, she would be much obliged to anybody who could and did; and she was nothing loath to betray her bias by looking kindly upon her self-appointed champion.

A whispered communication from Lady Diantha did nothing to abate her overt approbation.

As for Victor, his face of leaden gray took on a tinge of green; he quaked with rage, and the glare he loosed on Lanyard made that young man wonder if he were mistaken in believing that the eyes of the prince shone in that dusky room with something nearly akin to the phosphorescence to be seen in the eyes of an animal at night.

The notion was amusing: Lanyard paid it the tribute of a quiet smile, in direct acknowledgment of which Prince Victor snarled:

"Six thousand guineas!"

"And a hundred," Lanyard added.

Brief pause prefaced a bid designed to squelch him completely:

"Ten thousand!"

In a fatigued voice he uttered: "One hundred more."

"Fifteen--!"

This time Lanyard contented himself with nodding to the auctioneer; and the lips of the latter had barely parted to parrot the bid when Victor sprang to his feet, his features working, his limbs shaking so that the legs of the chair beside him, whose back he seized, chattered on the floor, while the high-pitched voice broke into a screech:

"Twenty!"

And Lanyard said: "And one."

"Twenty thousand one hundred guineas!" chanted the auctioneer. "Are there any more bids? You, sir--?" He aimed a respectful bow at Prince Victor, who snubbed him with a sign of fury. "Going--going--gone! Sold to Monsieur Lanyard for twenty thousand and one hundred guineas!"

And Lanyard had the satisfaction of seeing Prince Victor, after a vain effort to master his emotion, snatch up his topper, clap it on his head, and make for the door with footsteps whose stuttering haste was in poor accord with the dignity of his exalted station.

But it was debatable whether this satisfaction plus the possession of a questionable Corot was worth its cost. And Lanyard wasn't in the humour, now that the heat of contest began to abate, to look to Princess Sofia for promise of further reward. Even if he could have been guilty of such impertinence, indeed, he must have forborne for very shame. After all he hadn't figured very creditably, permitting petty prejudice to sway him as it had. He felt singularly sure he had played the gratuitous ass in this affair, and he didn't in the least desire to see the reflection of a like conviction in the eyes of a pretty young woman with a flair for the ridiculous.

He dissembled his diminished self-esteem, however, most successfully, as he proceeded to the desk of the auctioneer's clerk, filled in a cheque for the amount of his purchase, and gave instructions for its delivery.

Whether by intention or inadvertence, he was followed from the auction room by the Princess Sofia and Lady Diantha Mainwaring; and just outside the entrance he found Prince Victor waiting with all the air of a gentleman impatient for a cab to happen along and pick him up out of the drizzle.

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