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As soon as he was left alone MacMaster sat down on the edge of the model throne before the unfinished picture. Here indeed was what he had come for; it rather paralyzed his receptivity for the moment, but gradually the thing found its way to him.

At one o’clock he was standing before the collection of studies done for

Boccaccio’s Garden

when he heard a voice at his elbow.

“Pardon, sir, but I was just about to lock up and go to lunch. Are you lookin’ for the figure study of Boccaccio ‘imself?” James queried respectfully. “Lydy Elling Treffinger give it to Mr. Rossiter to take down to Oxford for some lectures he’s been agiving there.”

“Did he never paint out his studies, then?” asked MacMaster with perplexity. “Here are two completed ones for this picture. Why did he keep them?”

“I don’t know as I could say as to that, sir,” replied James, smiling indulgently, “but that was ‘is way. That is to say, ‘e pynted out very frequent, but ‘e always made two studies to stand; one in watercolors and one in oils, before ‘e went at the final picture–to say nothink of all the pose studies ‘e made in pencil before he begun on the composition proper at all. He was that particular. You see, ‘e wasn’t so keen for the final effect as for the proper pyntin’ of ‘is pictures. ‘E used to say they ought to be well made, the same as any other h’article of trade. I can lay my ‘and on the pose studies for you, sir.” He rummaged in one of the portfolios and produced half a dozen drawings, “These three,” he continued, “was discarded; these two was the pose he finally accepted; this one without alteration, as it were.

“That’s in Paris, as I remember,” James continued reflectively. “It went with the

Saint Cecilia

into the Baron H—‘s collection. Could you tell me, sir, ‘as ‘e it still? I don’t like to lose account of them, but some ‘as changed ‘ands since Sir ‘Ugh’s death.”

“H—‘s collection is still intact, I believe,” replied MacMaster. “You were with Treffinger long?”

“From my boyhood, sir,” replied James with gravity. “I was a stable boy when ‘e took me.”

“You were his man, then?”

“That’s it, sir. Nobody else ever done anything around the studio. I always mixed ‘is colors and ‘e taught me to do a share of the varnishin’; ‘e said as ‘ow there wasn’t a ‘ouse in England as could do it proper. You ayn’t looked at the

Marriage

yet, sir?” he asked abruptly, glancing doubtfully at MacMaster, and indicating with his thumb the picture under the north light.

“Not very closely. I prefer to begin with something simpler; that’s rather appalling, at first glance,” replied MacMaster.

“Well may you say that, sir,” said James warmly. “That one regular killed Sir ‘Ugh; it regular broke ‘im up, and nothink will ever convince me as ‘ow it didn’t bring on ‘is second stroke.”

When MacMaster walked back to High Street to take his bus his mind was divided between two exultant convictions. He felt that he had not only found Treffinger’s greatest picture, but that, in James, he had discovered a kind of cryptic index to the painter’s personality–a clue which, if tactfully followed, might lead to much.

Several days after his first visit to the studio, MacMaster wrote to Lady Mary Percy, telling her that he would be in London for some time and asking her if he might call. Lady Mary was an only sister of Lady Ellen Treffinger, the painter’s widow, and MacMaster had known her during one winter he spent at Nice. He had known her, indeed, very well, and Lady Mary, who was astonishingly frank and communicative upon all subjects, had been no less so upon the matter of her sister’s unfortunate marriage.