Page:Arthur Stringer - Twin Tales.djvu/266

256 carrying some of them downstairs when she fell," he reminded her. "What were they, besides the Bouguereau?"

She met his glance courageously in the clear light that flooded them.

"One was a copy of Manet's Breakfast on the Grass and the other was the Olympe."

He began to divine the demands he had made on her courage.

"They were nudes?"

"Yes," she acknowledged.

"And that was the reason they were removed?" he asked, smiling in spite of himself.

"They hate everything like that."

He found it harder than ever to go on. So he said almost curtly: "Let's see the Correggio."

She turned back to the stacked canvases.

"Now the others," he commanded, after he had confirmed his suspicions as to the larger canvas with the mendacious medallion on its tarnished frame.

He went through them patiently, and the inspection left him more depressed