instantly.

"Good-morning, _maître_," he began, right off. "I must apologize for
breaking in upon you. But I've come to see if you have any work to sell.
My name is Oxford, and I'm acting for a collector."

He said this with a very agreeable mingling of sincerity, deference, and
mercantile directness, also with a bright, admiring smile. He showed no
astonishment at the interior of the attic.

_Maître_!

Well, of course, it would be idle to pretend that the greatest artists
do not enjoy being addressed as _maître_. 'Master' is the same word, but
entirely different. It was a long time since Priam Farll had been called
_maître_. Indeed, owing to his retiring habits, he had very seldom been
called _maître_ at all. A just-finished picture stood on an easel near
the window; it represented one of the most wonderful scenes in London:
Putney High Street at night; two omnibus horses stepped strongly and
willingly out of a dark side street, and under the cold glare of the
main road they somehow took on the quality of equestrian sculpture. The
altercation of lights was in the highest degree complex. Priam
understood immediately, from the man's calm glance at the picture, and
the position which he instinctively took up to see it, that he was
accustomed to looking at pictures. The visitor did not start back, nor
rush forward, nor dissolve into hysterics, nor behave as though
confronted by the ghost of a murdered victim. He just gazed at the
picture, keeping his nerve and holding his tongue. And yet it was not an
easy picture to look at. It was a picture of an advanced
experimentalism, and would have appealed to nothing but the sense of