“Humph!  Full of fakes, as I supposed—­and she knows it,” was Cleek’s mental comment upon this.  And he was not surprised when, finding herself alone with him a few minutes later, she said, in her pretty, pleading way: 

“Mr. Rickaby, if you are an expert, don’t undeceive him.  I could not let you go to see the collection without first telling you.  It is full of bogus things, full of frauds and shams that unscrupulous dealers have palmed off on him.  But don’t let him know.  He takes such pride in them, and—­and he’s breaking down—­God pity me, his health is breaking down every day, Mr. Rickaby, and I want to spare him every pang, if I can, even so little a pang as the discovery that the things he prizes are not real.”

“Set your mind at rest, Mrs. Bawdrey,” promised Cleek.  “He will not find it out from me.  He will not find anything out from me.  He is just the kind of man to break his heart, to crumple up like a burnt glove, and come to the end of all things, even life, if he were to discover that any of his treasures, anything that he loved and trusted in, is a sham and a fraud.”

His eyes looked straight into hers as he spoke, his hand rested lightly on her sleeve.  She sucked in her breath suddenly, a brief pallor chased the roses from her cheeks, a brief confusion sat momentarily upon her.  She appeared to hesitate, then looked away and laughed uneasily.

“I don’t think I quite grasp what you mean, Mr. Rickaby,” she said.

“Don’t you?” he made answer.  “Then I will tell you—­some time—­to-morrow, perhaps.  But if I were you, Mrs. Bawdrey—­well, no matter.  This I promise you:  that dear old man shall have no ideal shattered by me.”

And, living up to that promise, he enthused over everything the old man had in his collection when, after dinner that night, they went, in company with Philip, to view it.  But bogus things were on every hand.  Spurious porcelains, fraudulent armour, faked china were everywhere.  The loaded cabinets and the glazed cases were one long procession of faked Dresden and bogus faience, of Egyptian enamels that had been manufactured in Birmingham, and of sixth-century “treasures” whose makers were still plying their trade and battening upon the ignorance of such collectors as he.

“Now, here’s a thing I am particularly proud of,” said the gulled old man, reaching into one of the cases and holding out for Cleek’s admiration an irregular disc of dull, hammered gold that had an iridescent beetle embedded in the flat face of it.  “This scarab, Mr. Rickaby, has helped to make history, as one might say.  It was once the property of Cleopatra.  I was obliged to make two trips to Egypt before I could persuade the owner to part with it.  I am always conscious of a certain sense of awe, Mr. Rickaby, when I touch this wonderful thing.  To think, sir, to think! that this bauble once rested on the bosom of that marvellous woman; that Mark Antony must have seen it, may have touched it; that Ptolemy Auletes knew all about it, and that it is older, sir, than the Christian religion itself!”