“Did you believe him?”

“I did at the time, but I don’t now.  He heard what I had to say with a good deal of indifference, till I showed him the portrait.  It was then that he was seized with the attack of which I spoke.  He looked ghastly, I assure you.”

“Then he must have seen the woman before.  But there might be another explanation; it might have been the name, and not the face, which was familiar to him.  What do you think?”

“I couldn’t say.  To the best of my belief it was after turning the portrait in his hands that he nearly dropped from the chair.  The name, you know, was written on the back.”

“Quite so.  After all, it is impossible to come to any resolution in a case like this.  I hate melodrama, and nothing strikes me as more commonplace and tedious than the ordinary ghost story of commerce; but really, Villiers, it looks as if there were something very queer at the bottom of all this.”

The two men had, without noticing it, turned up Ashley Street, leading northward from Piccadilly.  It was a long street, and rather a gloomy one, but here and there a brighter taste had illuminated the dark houses with flowers, and gay curtains, and a cheerful paint on the doors.  Villiers glanced up as Austin stopped speaking, and looked at one of these houses; geraniums, red and white, drooped from every sill, and daffodil-coloured curtains were draped back from each window.

“It looks cheerful, doesn’t it?” he said.

“Yes, and the inside is still more cheery.  One of the pleasantest houses of the season, so I have heard.  I haven’t been there myself, but I’ve met several men who have, and they tell me it’s uncommonly jovial.”

“Whose house is it?”

“A Mrs. Beaumont’s.”

“And who is she?”

“I couldn’t tell you.  I have heard she comes from South America, but after all, who she is is of little consequence.  She is a very wealthy woman, there’s no doubt of that, and some of the best people have taken her up.  I hear she has some wonderful claret, really marvellous wine, which must have cost a fabulous sum.  Lord Argentine was telling me about it; he was there last Sunday evening.  He assures me he has never tasted such a wine, and Argentine, as you know, is an expert.  By the way, that reminds me, she must be an oddish sort of woman, this Mrs. Beaumont.  Argentine asked her how old the wine was, and what do you think she said?  ’About a thousand years, I believe.’  Lord Argentine thought she was chaffing him, you know, but when he laughed she said she was speaking quite seriously and offered to show him the jar.  Of course, he couldn’t say anything more after that; but it seems rather antiquated for a beverage, doesn’t it?  Why, here we are at my rooms.  Come in, won’t you?”

“Thanks, I think I will.  I haven’t seen the curiosity-shop for a while.”

It was a room furnished richly, yet oddly, where every jar and bookcase and table, and every rug and jar and ornament seemed to be a thing apart, preserving each its own individuality.