The Argosy — page 53: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Princess Eleanor. 43 amongst them. After dinner the whole company went into the con- servatory to take coffee and admire Eleanor’s drawings, and from thence into the gallery. The able connoisseur stood still before all the pictures that formerly had been his favourites, and thus it took some time before we reached the round room, where the chefs d’ceuvre are hung. Werdan went with Eleanor into the recess of a window. I followed them from jealousy, and also because I could not stand listening to the Prince’s praises of my last copy. They began dis- cussing as to whether it was appropriate to rob the collection of the originals. I heard nothing more from the moment Eleanor turned from Werdan, and received me with a smile, until I was startled by the visitor's exclamation : “T have been looking for more than five minutes for your Rem- brandt, Waldemberg, and am curious to hear what better place you could have assigned to it.” “What do you mean?” asked the Prince. Then as he approached the pictare, both exclaimed together : “A copy, by heaven !” I moved nearer. Geoffrey, imagine my horror, if you can. It was my copy! I stood, as if the world around me had suddenly dis- appeared—Eleanor with it! My blood rushed to the heart, and I could do nothing but stretch out my hand towards the picture to know if all were reality or delusion. ‘What do you think of this?” the Prince asked, without turning towards me. I felt all the while that Eleanor’s gaze was intently fixed upon me. “It is certainly—not the—original!” I gasped forth, whilst cold perspiration covered my forehead. The strange tone of my voice caused the two men at my side to turn round simultaneously. Prince Emest’s eyes, after a short look of surprise, took an expres- sion of profound sadness. Believe me, Geoffrey, no Virgil, no Dante, has ever described such tortures as I suffered in those moments. Time for me had ceased to be ; every second was an age ; the whole quarter of an hour but one moment. I would renounce happiness for ever rather than again suffer those torments. “Do you know anything of the fraud committed?” asked Prince Emest in icy tones. Eleanor stood opposite me, her body bent for- ward, her eyes wildly staring. My look wandered round the circle in whose centre I stood. When it met Werdan’s face, I knew all. The closed lids, the expressionless features, said more plainly than human speech could have done : “ Re- member your word!” Geoffrey, I, an honourable and free man, was to take this ignominy upon myself, was to keep my word: only to show that it was. as good as that rascal’s—as good as a nobleman’s! What irony! I comichooks.com