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“How much is bid?” he called out.

Everybody looked round, and the auctioneer replied, “It’s just been sold.”

There was a laugh, Grafton looked so wild and strange. Leaning on the arm of the nurse he went to the settlement desk. “To whom was that picture sold?” he said to the clerk.

“On a cable from Paris, Mr. Grafton,” interrupted one of the members of the auction firm. “We’ve had a standing order from Candace Brothers for five years to let them know if the picture came or was likely to come into the market. And they’ve cabled every six months to remind us. When Mr. Acton decided to sell, we sent word. They ordered us to buy, with fifteen thousand dollars as the limit.”

Grafton was furious; he would gladly have paid twenty. “And what did it go for?” he asked.

“Seventeen hundred,” replied the dealer. “Everybody was suspicious of it. We would have got it for five hundred, if it hadn’t been for an artist; he bid it up to his limit.”

“I must sit,” said Grafton to his nurse. “This is too much—too much.”