"Because it sat for days and days in the robes of a Byzantine
Empress to a painter. . . I wonder where he discovered these
priceless stuffs. . . You knew him, I believe?"

Mills lowered his head slowly, then tossed down his throat some
wine out of a Venetian goblet.

"This house is full of costly objects. So are all his other
houses, so is his place in Paris--that mysterious Pavilion hidden
away in Passy somewhere."

Mills knew the Pavilion. The wine had, I suppose, loosened his
tongue. Blunt, too, lost something of his reserve. From their
talk I gathered the notion of an eccentric personality, a man of
great wealth, not so much solitary as difficult of access, a
collector of fine things, a painter known only to very few people
and not at all to the public market. But as meantime I had been
emptying my Venetian goblet with a certain regularity (the amount
of heat given out by that iron stove was amazing; it parched one's
throat, and the straw-coloured wine didn't seem much stronger than
so much pleasantly flavoured water) the voices and the impressions
they conveyed acquired something fantastic to my mind. Suddenly I
perceived that Mills was sitting in his shirt-sleeves. I had not
noticed him taking off his coat. Blunt had unbuttoned his shabby
jacket, exposing a lot of starched shirt-front with the white tie
under his dark shaved chin. He had a strange air of insolence--or
so it seemed to me. I addressed him much louder than I intended
really.