Jane admired the rug, but she would have preferred the gold. Her sense of
the beautiful was alive, but there was always in her mind the genteel
poverty of the past. She was beginning to understand. To go in quest of
the beautiful required an unlimited purse and an endless leisure; and she
would have never the one nor the other.
"How much gold would that be?" she inquired, naïvely.
"Nearly eighty thousand. Have you kept in mind the sums I have given
you?"
"Yes. Let me see--good heavens, a quarter of a million! But why do you
carry them about like this?"
"Because I'm something of a rogue myself. I could not enjoy the rug and
the paintings except on board. The French, the Italian, and the Spanish
governments could confiscate every solitary painting except the Meissonier
and the Detaille, for the simple reason that they were stolen. Oh, I did
not steal them myself; I merely purchased them with one eye shut. If I
hadn't bought them they would have gone to some other collector. Do you
get a glimmer of the truth now?"
"The truth?"--perplexedly.
"Yes--where Cunningham will get his pearls?"--bitterly.
"Oh!"
"And I could not touch him. A quarter of a million! And with his knowledge
of the secret marts he could easily dispose of them. Worth a bold stroke,
eh?"
"But how will he get them off the yacht--transship them?"
Her faith in Cunningham began to waver. A quarter of a million! The
thought was as bells in her ears.
"Of the outside issues I have no inkling. But I have shown you his
pearls."
"But the crew! Certainly they will not return to any port with us. And why
should he lie to me? There is no reason in the world why he shouldn't
have told me, if he had committed piracy to obtain your paintings. And he
was poring over maps."
"Some tramp is probably going to pick him up. He's ordered us away from
the wireless. Cunningham must have his joke, so he is beguiling you with
twaddle about hunting pearls. He is robbing me of my treasures, and I
can't strike back on that count. But I can land him in prison on the count
of piracy; and by the Lord Harry, I'll do it if it takes my last dollar!
He'll rue this adventure, or they call me Tungsten for nothing!"
"I wanted so to believe in him!"
"Not difficult to understand why. He has a silver tongue and a face like
John the Baptist--del Sarto's--and you are romantic. The picture of him
has enlisted your sympathies. You are filled with pity that he should be
so richly endowed, facially and mentally, and to be a cripple such as
children laugh over."