He glanced at his former patron with a little polite curiosity as Ste. Marie followed his suggestion, and began to turn over the big portfolio’s contents; but he did not show any surprise nor ask questions.  Indeed, he guessed, to a certain extent, rather near the truth of the matter.  It had happened before that young gentlemen—­and old ones, too—­wanted to look over his prints without offering explanations, and they generally picked out all the photographs there were of some particular lady and bought them if they could be bought.

So he was by no means astonished on this occasion, and he moved about the room putting things to rights, and even went for a few moments into the studio beyond until he was recalled by a sudden exclamation from his visitor—­an exclamation which had a sound of mingled delight and excitement.

Ste. Marie held in his hands a large photograph, and he turned it toward the man who had made it.

“I am going to ask you some questions,” said he, “that will sound rather indiscreet and irregular, but I beg you to answer them if you can, because the matter is of great importance to a number of people.  Do you remember this lady?”

“Oh yes,” said the Jew, readily, “I remember her very well.  I never forget people who are as beautiful as this lady was.”  His eyes gleamed with retrospective joy.  “She was splendid!” he declared.  “Sumptuous!  No, I cannot describe her.  I have not the words.  And I could not photograph her with any justice, either.  She was all color:  brown skin, with a dull-red stain under the cheeks, and a great mass of hair that was not black but very nearly black—­except in the sun, and then there were red lights in it.  She was a goddess, that lady, a queen of goddesses—­ the young Juno before marriage—­the—­”

“Yes,” interrupted Ste. Marie—­“yes, I see.  Yes, quite evidently she was beautiful; but what I wanted in particular to know was her name, if you feel that you have a right to give it to me (I remind you again that the matter is very important), and any circumstances that you can remember about her coming here:  who came with her, for instance and things of that sort.”

The photographer looked a little disappointed at being cut off in the middle of his rhapsody, but he began turning over the leaves of an order-book which lay upon a table near by.

“Here is the entry,” he said, after a few moments.  “Yes, I thought so, the date was nearly three months ago—­April 5th.  And the lady’s name was Mlle. Coira O’Hara.”

“What!” cried the other man, sharply.  “What did you say?”

“Mlle. Coira O’Hara was the name,” repeated the photographer.  “I remember the occasion perfectly.  The lady came here with three gentlemen—­one tall, thin gentleman with an eyeglass, an Englishman, I think, though he spoke very excellent French when he spoke to me.  Among themselves they spoke, I think, English, though I do not understand it, except a few words, such as ‘’ow moch?’ and ‘sank you’ and ’rady, pleas’, now.’”