Chapter XXII: “dear Harold,

“I have been behaving like a cad.

Your picture is an original Bronzino, worth quite enough to free you
from all the difficulties brought about by the bank. Any copyist who
could do such work could expend his time more profitably on a picture
of his own. Besides, it’s a _tour de force_ in colouring that no
sane copyist would dream of imitating. Bronzino, I suppose, fancied
his subject, and, like some other great painters, reproduced it in
duplicate, with just the smallest amount of alteration that would
serve to characterize and identify it.

“And now for my own part in this sorry business. It was a mean
trick, but, thank Heaven, I hadn’t the strength, and, I hope, not the
will to carry it through. You see I wanted her so badly that I
couldn’t give her up even to you. And then the question of the
picture turned up, and, unluckily, I found in it my opportunity.
Till then, believe me, I had kept my honour safe. All of a sudden,
the words she had used of me on Chapel hill, the night of the show,
flashed across my mind, and I thought that, if you were out of the
way for a time, I might win her still. And it _was_ hard for me, you
know, when I had waited for her all these years, and had come home at
last to claim her, to find that you had won her love.

“Believe me, Harold, when I say I am sorry. I have sinned against
the friend of my youth and the woman of my love. But try, old
friend—not now but in the future—to win my pardon from Marion and
yourself. You will have time to do so, for I leave England to-morrow
for the East, and shall not return, if I ever do, till I can face
your happiness without a thought of envy or regret. Don’t tell
Marion more than you can help. Old friend, good-bye.

“ERIC.”

“P.S.—I enclose Christie and Manson’s receipt for your picture, which will go into their next sale. ‘Bronzino _at his best_’ the critics pronounce it, which in his case means a big difference. I am forwarding you my own picture of ‘Val Verde,’ which I always intended for Marion.”