So long as he possessed the
"Mackworth gems" he was, in the eyes of the world of connoisseurs, at any
rate, a personage. Without them he was a personage nowhere. Every month,
every week, almost, he was beginning to receive requests to be allowed
to see and study them, or appeals to lend them for exhibition. In the
four months since his uncle's death, both the Louvre and the Berlin
Museum had approached him, offering to exhibit them, and hinting that the
loan might lead, should he so desire it, to a very profitable sale. If he
did anything of the kind, he was pledged of course to give the British
Museum the first chance. But he was not going to do it--he was not even
going to lend them--yet a while. To possess them, and the _kudos_ that
went with them; _not_ to sell them, for sentimental reasons, and even at
a money loss, made a poor man proud, and ministered in strange ways to
his self-respect, which went often rather hungry; gave him, in short, a
standing with himself, and with the world. All the more, that the poor
man's mind was in fact, set passionately on the conquest of wealth--real
and substantial wealth--to which the paltry sum of three thousand pounds
bore no sort of relation.
No, he would not sell them. But he braced himself to a tussle with
Melrose, for he seemed to have gathered from a number of small
indications that the fierce old collector had set his heart upon them.
And no doubt this business of the newly furnished rooms, and all the
luxuries that had been given or promised, made it more difficult--had
been intended, perhaps, to make it more difficult? Well, he could but say
his No and depart, expressing his gratitude--and insisting on the payment
of his score!
But--depart where? The energies of renewed health were pulsing through
him, and yet he had seldom felt more stranded, or, except in connection
with the gems, more insignificant, either to himself or others; in
spite of this palace which had been oddly renovated for his convenience.
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