“No. 1. Cupid and Psyche: Bronzino. Ladies and Gentlemen: what shall I start it at—this beautiful picture, an undoubted masterpiece of the Italian School?”

James sniggered. Connoisseur—with his ‘Cupid and Pish’!

To his astonishment there was some brisk bidding; and James’ upper lip began to lengthen, as ever at any dispute about values. The picture was knocked down and a ‘Snyders’ put up. James sat watching picture after picture disposed of. It was hot in the room and he felt sleepy—he didn’t know why he had come; he might have been having a nap at the Club, or driving with Emily.

“What—no bid for the Hondekoeter? This large masterpiece.”

James gazed at the enormous picture on the easel, supported at either end by an attendant. The huge affair was full of poultry and feathers floating in a bit of water and a large white rooster looking as if it were about to take a bath. It was a dark painting, save for the rooster, with a yellowish tone.

“Come, gentlemen? By a celebrated painter of domestic poultry. May I say fifty? Forty? Who’ll give me forty pounds? It’s giving it away. Well, thirty to start it? Look at the rooster! Masterly painting! Come now! I’ll take any bid.”

“Five pounds!” said James, covering the words so that no one but the auctioneer should see where they came from.

“Five pounds for this genuine work by a master of domestic poultry! Ten pounds did you say, Sir? Ten pounds bid.”

“Fifteen,” muttered James.

“Twenty.”

“Twenty-five,” said James; he was not going above thirty.

“Twenty-five—why, the frame’s worth it. Who says thirty?”

No one said thirty; and the picture was knocked down to James, whose mouth had opened slightly. He hadn’t meant to buy it; but the thing was a bargain—the size had frightened them; Jolyon had paid one hundred and forty for his Hondekoeter. Well, it would cover that blank on the stairs. He waited till two more pictures had been sold; then, leaving his card with directions for the despatch of the Hondekoeter, made his way up St. James’ Street and on towards home.

He found Emily just starting out with Rachel and Cicely in the barouche, but refused to accompany them—a little afraid of being asked what he had been doing. Entering his deserted house, he told Warmson that he felt liverish; he would have a cup of tea and a muffin, nothing more; then passing on to the stairs, he stood looking at the blank space. When the picture was hung, it wouldn’t be there. What would Soames say to it, though—the boy had begun to interest himself in pictures since his run abroad? Still, the price he had paid was not the market value; and, passing on up to the drawing-room, he drank his China tea, strong, with cream, and ate two muffins. If he didn’t feel better tomorrow, he should have Dash look at him.

The following morning, starting for the office, he said to Warmson:

“There’ll be a picture come today. You’d better get Hunt and Thomas to help you hang it. It’s to go in the middle of that space on the stairs. You’d better have it done when your mistress is out. Let ’em bring it in the back way—it’s eleven foot by six; and mind the paint.”

When he returned, rather late, the Hondekoeter was hung. It covered the space admirably, but the light being poor and the picture dark, it was not possible to see what it was about. It looked quite well. Emily was in the drawing-room when he went in.

“What on earth is that great picture on the stairs, James?”

“That?” said James. “A Hondekoeter; picked it up, a bargain, at Smelter’s sale. Jolyon’s got one at Stanhope Gate.”

“I never saw such a lumbering great thing.”

“What?” said James. “It covers up that space well. It’s not as if you could see anything on the stairs. There’s some good poultry in it.”

“It makes the stairs darker than they were before. I don’t know what Soames will say. Really, James, you oughtn’t to go about alone, buying things like that.”

“I can do what I like with my money, I suppose,” said James. “It’s a well-known name.”

“Well,” said Emily, “for a man of your age—Never mind! Don’t fuss! Sit down and drink your tea.”

James sat down, muttering. Women—always unjust, and no more sense of values than an old tom-cat!

Emily said no more, ever mistress of her suave and fashionable self.

Winifred, with Montague Dartie, came in later, so that all the family were assembled for dinner; Cicely having her hair down, Rachel her hair up—she had ‘come out’ this season; Soames, who had just parted with the little whiskers of the late ‘seventies, looking pale and flatter-cheeked than usual. Winifred, beginning to be ‘interesting,’ owing to the approach of a little Dartie, kept her eyes somewhat watchfully on ‘Monty,’ square and oiled, with a ‘handsome’ look on his sallow face, and a big diamond stud in his shining shirt-front.

It was she who broached the Hondekoeter.

“Pater dear, what made you buy that enormous picture?”

James looked up, and mumbled through his mutton:

“Enormous! It’s the right size for that space on the stairs.” It seemed to him at the moment that his family had very peculiar faces.

“It’s very fine and large!” Dartie was speaking! ‘Um!’ thought James: ‘What does HE want—money?’

“It’s so yellow,” said Rachel, plaintively.

“What do YOU know about a picture?”

“I know what I like, Pater.”

James stole a glance at his son, but Soames was looking down his nose.

“It’s very good value,” said James, suddenly. “There’s some first-rate feather painting in it.”

Nothing more was said at the moment, nobody wanting to hurt the Pater’s feelings, but, upstairs, in the drawing-room after Emily and her three daughters had again traversed the length of the Hondekoeter, a lively conversation broke out.

Really—the Pater! Rococo was not the word for pictures that size! And chickens—who wanted to look at chickens, even if you could see them? But, of course, Pater thought a bargain excused everything.

Emily said:

“Don’t be disrespectful, Cicely.”

“Well, Mater, he does, you know. All the old Forsytes do.”

Emily, who secretly agreed, said: “H’ssh!”

She was always loyal to James, in his absence. They all were, indeed, except among themselves.

“Soames thinks it dreadful,” said Rachel. “I hope he’ll tell the Pater so.”

“Soames will do nothing of the sort,” said Emily. “Really your father can do what he likes in his own house—you children are getting very uppish.”

“Well, Mater, you know jolly well it’s awfully out of date.”

“I wish you would not say ‘awfully’ and ‘jolly,’ Cicely.”

“Why not? Everybody does, at school.”

Winifred cut in:

“They really are the latest words, Mother.”

Emily was silent; nothing took the wind out of her sails like the word ‘latest,’ for, though a woman of much character, she could not bear to be behindhand.

“Listen!” said Rachel, who had opened the door.

A certain noise could be heard; it was James, extolling the Hondekoeter, on the stairs.

“That rooster,” he was saying, “is a fine bird; and look at those feathers floating. Think they could paint those nowadays? Your Uncle Jolyon gave a hundred an’ forty for his Hondekoeter, and I picked this up for twenty-five.”

“What did I say?” whispered Cicely. “A bargain. I hate bargains; they lumber up everything. That Turner was another!”

“Shh!” said Winifred, who was not so young, and wished that Monty had more sense of a bargain than he had as yet displayed. “I like a bargain myself; you know you’ve got something for your money.”

“I’d rather have my money,” said Cicely.

“Don’t be silly, Cicely,” said Emily; “go and play your piece. Your father likes it.”

James and Dartie now entered, Soames having passed on up to his room where he worked at night.

Cicely began her piece. She was at home owing to an outbreak of mumps at her school on Ham Common; and her piece, which contained a number of runs up and down the piano, was one which she was perfecting for the school concert at the end of term. James, who made a point of asking for it, partly because it was good for Cicely, and partly because it was good for his digestion, took his seat by the hearth between his whiskers, averting his eyes from animated objects. Unfortunately, he never could sleep after dinner, and thoughts buzzed in his head. Soames had said there was no demand now for large pictures, and very little for the Dutch school—he had admitted, however, that the Hondekoeter was a bargain as values went; the name alone was worth the money. Cicely commenced her ‘piece’; James brooded on. He really didn’t know whether he was glad he had bought the thing or not. Everyone of them had disapproved, except Dartie; the only one whose disapproval he would have welcomed. To say that James was conscious of a change in the mental outlook of his day would be to credit him with a philosophic sensibility unsuited to his breeding and his age; but he WAS uncomfortably conscious that a bargain was not what it had been. And while Cicely’s fingers ran up and down—he didn’t know, he couldn’t say.