The owner nodded complacently. He was a small man, sparely built, and had contracted, during forty years' labour in the money market, a pronounced stoop. His neat moustache was wonderfully black, blacker than Nature had designed it, and the entire absence of hair upon his high, gleaming crown enabled the craniologist to detect, without difficulty, Sir Leopold's abnormal aptitude for finance.
"Two thousand would not buy it, sir!" he answered.
Crofton whistled softly and then passed along the room.
"This is very beautiful!" he said suddenly, and bent over a small vase with figures in relief. "The design and sculpture are amazingly fine!"
"That piece," replied Sir Leopold, clearing his throat, "is almost unique. There is only one other example known--the Hamilton Vase!"
"Yes. They are of the same period, and both from the Barberini Palace."
"Of course you have read the latest particulars of that extraordinary affair? What do you make of it?"
"The vase is known to every connoisseur in Europe," he said. "No one dare buy it--though," he added smiling, "many would like to!"
Sheard coughed uneasily. He had a task to perform.
"Your collection represents a huge fortune, Sir Leopold," he said.
"Say four hundred thousand pounds!" answered the collector comfortably.
"A large sum. Think of the thousands whom that amount would make happy!"
Having broken the ice, Sheard found his enforced task not altogether distasteful. It seemed wrong to him, unjust, and in strict disaccordance with the views of the _Gleaner_, that these thousands should be locked up for one man's pleasure, while starvation levied its toll upon the many. Moreover, he nurtured a temperamental distaste for the whole Semitic race--a Western resentment of that insidious Eastern power.
Crofter looked surprised, and clearly thought his friend's remark in rather bad taste. Sir Leopold faced round abruptly, and a hard look crept into his small bright eyes.
"Mr. Sheard," he said harshly. "I began life as a pauper. What I have, I have worked for."
"Had you, in those days of early poverty, been smitten down with sickness, of what use to you would your admittedly fine commercial capacity have been? You would then, only too gladly, have availed yourself of such an institution as the Sladen Hospital, for instance."