left: a beautiful girl lying on her belly, her legs parted slightly.
Therefore the bidding began briskly, but for some unaccountable
reason it died away. "Somebody must have declared it to be a
forgery," Owen whispered to Harding, and a moment after it became
Harding's property for eighty-seven pounds--"The exact sum I paid
for it years ago. How very extraordinary!"

"A portrait by Manet--a hundred pounds offered, one hundred," and two
grey eyes in a face of stone searched the room for bidders. "One
hundred pounds offered, five, thirty, thirty-five, forty, fifty,"
and so on to two hundred.

"Her portrait will cost me a thousand," Owen whispered to Harding,
and, catching the auctioneer's eyes, he nodded again. Seven hundred.
"Will they never stop bidding? That fellow yonder is determined to
run up the picture." Eight hundred and fifty! The auctioneer raised
his hammer, and the watchful eyes went round the room in search of
some one who would pay another ten pounds for Evelyn's portrait by
Manet. Eight hundred and fifty--eight hundred and fifty. Down came
the hammer. The auctioneer whispered "Sir Owen Asher" to his clerk.

"It's a mercy I got it for that; I was afraid it would go over the
thousand. Now, come, we have got our two pictures. I'm sick of the
place."

Harding had thought of staying on, just to see the end of the sale,
but it was easier to yield to Owen than to argue with him; besides,
he was anxious to see how the drawing would look on his wall. Of
course it was a Boucher. Stupid remarks were always floating about
Christie's. But he would know for certain as soon as he saw the