Had Miss Caroline been alone, she might have fallen. Even I was staggered, but not beyond recovery. The messenger bore back, at my suggestion, a refusal of the offer and a further refusal to consider any more offers that evening. There was indicated a need for calm daylight consideration, and a face-to-face meeting with this variable Mr. Cohen.

"But he leaves on the night train," said Miss Caroline. "It may be our last chance, and six hundred dollars is--"

"He only says he leaves," I responded. "And for three days, at least, Mr. Cohen seems to have been grossly misinformed about his own movements. Perhaps he's deceived himself again."

At eight o'clock the following morning Clem served my breakfast for the first time since his illness, and I approached it with thanksgiving for his recovery.

A knock at the door took him from me just as he had poured the first cup of real coffee I had seen for nearly three months. He came back with the card of one James Walsingham Price, whom I did not know; whereas I did know the coffee.

"Fetch him here," I said. "He can't expect me to leave this coffee, whoever he is."

Into my dining room was then ushered a tall, smartly dressed, smooth-faced man of perhaps middle age, with yellowish hair compactly plastered to his head. He became, I thought, suddenly alert as he crossed my threshold. I arose to greet him.

"This is--" I had to glance at the card.

"Yes--and you're Major Blake? I regret to disturb you, Major,"--here his glance rested blankly upon the rich golden-brown surface of Clem's omelette, and it seemed to me that the thread of his intention was broken for an instant by a fit of absentmindedness. He resumed his speech only after an appreciable pause, as if the omelette had reminded him of something.

"The hour is untimely, but I'm told that you're a friend of a Mrs.

Lansdale, who has some pieces of Colonial furniture she wishes to let go. I wondered, you know, if you'd be good enough to introduce me. I rather thought some such formality might be advisable--I understand that a shark named Cohen has already approached her."

Even as he spoke I recalled that Mr. Cohen's face, in profile, might provoke the vision of a shark to a person of lively imagination.

"I shall be glad," I said, "to present you to Mrs. Lansdale."

Again had my caller's glance trailed across the breakfast table, where the omelette, the m.u.f.fins, and the coffee-urn waited. The glance was politely unnoting, but in it there yet lurked, far back, the unmistakable quality of a caress. In an instant I remembered, and, with a pang of sympathy, I became his hungered brother.

"By the way, Mr. Price, are you staying at the City Hotel?"

"The man said it was the only place, you know."

"You had breakfast there this morning?" He bowed his a.s.sent eloquently, I thought.

"Then by all means sit down and have breakfast."

"Oh, _really_, no--by _no_ means--I a.s.sure you I'd a capital breakfast--"

"Clem!"

Clem placed a chair, into which Mr. Price dropped without loss of time, though protesting with polished vehemence against the imposition.

His eyes shone, nevertheless, as Clem set a cup of coffee at his elbow and brought a plate.

"May I ask when you arrived?" I questioned.

"Only last evening."

"Then you dined at the City Hotel?"

"Major Blake, I will be honest with you--I _did!_"

"Clem, another omelette, quick--but first fetch some oranges, then put on a lot more of that Virginia ham and mix up some waffles, too. Hurry along!"

"Really, you are very good, Major."

"Not that," I answered modestly; "I've merely eaten at the City Hotel."

But I doubt if he heard, for he lovingly inhaled the aroma of his coffee with half-shut eyes.

"I am delighted to have met you," he said. "If ever you come to New York--" He tore himself from the omelette long enough to scribble the name of a club on the card by my plate.

"I rarely crave more than coffee and a roll in the morning," he continued, after the second omelette, the ham, the waffles, and more coffee had been consumed. "I fancy it's your bracing air."

I fancied it was only the City Hotel, but I did not revert to that.

When at last Mr. Price lighted a cigar which I had procured at an immense distance from Sloc.u.m County, he spoke of furniture, also of Cohen.

Beheld through the romantic mist of after-breakfast, Cohen was, perhaps, not wholly a shark; at least not more than any dealer in old furniture.

Really, they were almost forced to be sharks. It was not in the nature of the business that they should lead honest lives. Mere collectors--of which cla.s.s my guest was--were bad enough. Still, if you could catch a collector in one of his human moments--

He blew forth the smoke of my cigar with a relish so poignant that I suspected he had already tried one of Jake Kilburn's best, the kind concerning which Jake feels it considerate to warn purchasers that they are "five cents, straight" and _not_ six for a quarter. I saw that if the collector before me were subject to human moments, he must be suffering one now. So, while he smoked, I told him freely of Miss Caroline, of her furniture and her plight.

He commended the tale.

"One of the best I ever heard," he declared. "Only, if you'll pardon me, it sounds too good to be true. It sounds, indeed, like a 'plant,'--fine old Southern family, impoverished by war--faithful body-servant--old Colonial mansion despoiled of its heirlooms--rare opportunities for the collector. Really, Major, you should see some of the stuff that was landed on me when I began, years ago, with a story almost as good.

Reproductions, every piece of it, with as fine an imitation of worm-eaten backs as you could ever wish to see."

I had never wished to see any worm-eaten backs whatever, but I sought to betray regret that I had not encountered this surpa.s.sing lot of them.

"Of course," he continued, "you will understand that I am speaking now as a hardened collector, whose life is beset with pitfalls and with gins--not as a starved wretch to the saver of his life."

"You shall see the stuff," I said.

"Oh, by all means, and the quicker the better. Cohen is waiting at the hotel for me now--at the foot of the front stairway, and he may suspect any minute that I was mean enough to slink down the back stairs and out through an alley. In fact, I'm rather excited at the prospect of seeing that furniture--Cohen condemned it so bitterly."

"He sent an offer of six hundred dollars for it last night," I said.

Hereupon my guest became truly excited.

"He _did_--six hundred--_Cohen_ did? I don't wish to be rude, old chap, but would you mind hastening? That is more eloquent than all your story."

For half an hour, notwithstanding his eagerness, Mr. James Walsingham Price succ.u.mbed to the manner of Miss Caroline. Noting the lack of compunction with which she played upon him before my very eyes, I divined that the late Colonel Lansdale had not found the need of pistols entirely done away with even by the sacrament of marriage.

Not until Clem announced "Mr. Cohen" did the self-confessed collector cease to be a man.

"Not at home," said Miss Caroline, crisply. Price grinned with appreciation and fell to examining the furniture in strange ways.

It was a busy day for him, but I could see that he found it enjoyable, and strangely was it borne in upon me that Miss Caroline's ancient stuff was in some sense desirable.

More than once did Price permit some sign of emotion to be read in his face--as when the sixth chair of a certain set was at last found supporting a water-pail in the kitchen. The house was not large, but it was crowded, and Price was frankly surprised at the number of things it held.

At six o'clock he went to dine with me, Miss Caroline having told him that I was authorized to act for her on any proposal he might have to make.