My friend leaned back with a sigh of mingled resentment and satisfaction, and we sat silently looking up at the lovely “Adoration” above the mantelpiece.
“That’s how I got it a little cheaper—most of the old varnish was gone for good. But luckily for her it was the first picture she had attacked; and as for the others—you must see them, that’s all I can say… Wait! I’ve got the catalogue somewhere about…”
He began to rummage for it, and I asked, remembering how nearly I had married Netta Kent: “Do you mean to say she didn’t keep a single one of them?”
“Oh, yes—in the shape of pearls and Rolls-Royces. And you’ve seen their new house in Fifth Avenue?” He ended with a grin of irony: “The best joke is that Jim was just thinking of divorcing her when the pictures were discovered.”
“Poor little Louisa!” I sighed.