Page:Arthur Stringer - Twin Tales.djvu/267

Rh than he could understand. Yet he was tired of equivocation. He felt that nothing was to be gained by any further deferment of the death sentence.

"I'm afraid I have a very great disappointment for you," he began as gently as he could.

He watched her as she turned slowly away and stared at the stacked canvases and the strips of faded cotton littering the floor. He could detect no stirring of emotion on her face, and for a moment he thought she had failed to catch at the note of forewarning in his voice.

"You mean they're not so valuable—not so valuable in the matter of dollars and cents—as my Aunt Georgina has been led to believe they are?"

"I'm sorry," said Conkling, "but the two Constables are only copies, and there's no chance of being mistaken when I say the Holbein is a palpable forgery. The Correggio is not even worth considering. It impresses me as a gallery student's sketch—the sort of thing they used to sell to tourists by the mile. Strictly speaking, it has