Three hundred and fifty thousand francs.  If sufficed.  Thinking of those figures, he began to smile with contentment.  He smiled—­but no more.  And as he continued to muse upon the transaction his look melted, imperceptibly, into one of reverential awe; there was a solemnity about that sum, an amplitude, a perfection of outline that reminded him, in a way, of the proportions of some wonderful old Doric temple.  The labour of a lifetime would not have enabled him to collect so much had he tried to sell bronzes of his own workmanship.  A bust or statue by Count Caloveglia—­it would command a certain small price, no doubt; but what was the reputation, the market value, of the most eminent modern artist as compared with that nameless but consummate craftsman of Locri?

The Count saw things in their true perspective.  His mental attitude towards Sir Herbert Street and his American employer was not tinged with the faintest cloud of disrespect; for van Koppen, indeed, he cherished a liking which bordered on affection.  He detected in the astute American what nobody else could detect—­an element of childlike freshness and simplicity.  As far apart, in externals, as two distant trees whose leaves are fluttering on either side of some tangled forest, he yet felt that their roots were interwoven below ground, drawing common life and nourishment and sympathies from that old teeming soil of human aspirations.  Nor was he vainglorious of his achievement.  His superiority over the art-expert he took as a gift of the gods.  Vanityi was abhorrent to his nature.  He was not proud but glad—­glad to have been able to reconquer his legitimate social position; glad, above all things, to have forged a link with the past—­a key to admit him into the fellowship of Lysippus and those others whose august shades, he opined, were even them smiling upon him.  The Locri Faun was his handiwork.  He was “entitled to dine well,” as he had told Denis.  That was what he now purposed to do.  One master-stroke had repaired his fortunes.  It sufficed.  Nothing overmuch.  Count Caloveglia knew the story of Polycrates, the too-fortunate man.  He knew what lies in wait for the presumptuous mortal whoo oversteps the boundary of what is fair and good.  Nemesis!

Three hundred and fifty thousand francs.  There would be an ample dowry for Matilda.  And, as regards himself, he could return to his passion of youth; he could afford to become a sculptor again and even, if so disposed, a collector—­though not exactly after the style of his excellent friend Cornelius van Koppen.

“That was a suggestive encounter, was it not, between the Deputy and our local judge?”

He spoke, as before, out of civility.

“Very suggestive,” assented Mr. Heard.  “Two blackguards, I call them.”