"Then do you consider that you account for this one?"
"I believe I shall if you"ll give me time."
"Oh, time!" Mr. Bender impatiently sighed. "But we"ll give you all we"ve got--only I guess it isn"t much." And he appeared freely to invite their companions to join in this estimate. They listened to him, however, they watched him, for the moment, but in silence, and with the next he had gone on: "How much higher--if your idea is correct about it--would Lord Theign"s picture come?"
Hugh turned to that n.o.bleman. "Does Mr. Bender mean come to _him_, my lord?"
Lord Theign looked again hard at Hugh, and then harder than he had done yet at his other invader. "I don"t know _what_ Mr. Bender means!" With which he turned off.
"Well, I guess I mean that it would come higher to me than to any one!
But how _much_ higher?" the American continued to Hugh.
"How much higher to _you?_"
"Oh, I can size _that_. How much higher as a Mantovano?"
Unmistakably--for us at least--our young man was gaining time; he had the instinct of circ.u.mspection and delay. "To any one?"
"To any one."
"Than as a Moretto?" Hugh continued.
It even acted on Lord John"s nerves. "That"s what we"re talking about--really!"
But Hugh still took his ease; as if, with his eyes first on Bender and then on Lord Theign, whose back was practically presented, he were covertly studying signs. "Well," he presently said, "in view of the very great interest combined with the very great rarity, more than--ah more than can be estimated off-hand."
It made Lord Theign turn round. "But a fine Moretto has a very great rarity and a very great interest."
"Yes--but not on the whole the same amount of either."
"No, not on the whole the same amount of either!"--Mr. Bender judiciously echoed it. "But how," he freely pursued, "are you going to find out?"
"Have I your permission, Lord Theign," Hugh brightly asked, "to attempt to find out?"
The question produced on his lordship"s part a visible, a natural anxiety. "What would it be your idea then to _do_ with my property?"
"Nothing at all here--it could all be done, I think, at Verona. What besets, what quite haunts me," Hugh explained, "is the vivid image of a Mantovano--one of the glories of the short list--in a private collection in that place. The conviction grows in me that the two portraits must be of the same original. In fact I"ll bet my head," the young man quite ardently wound up, "that the wonderful subject of the Verona picture, a very great person clearly, is none other than the very great person of yours."
Lord Theign had listened with interest. "Mayn"t he be that and yet from another hand?"
"It isn"t another hand"--oh Hugh was quite positive. "It"s the hand of the very same painter."
"How can you prove it"s the same?"
"Only by the most intimate internal evidence, I admit--and evidence that of course has to be estimated."
"Then who," Lord Theign asked, "is to estimate it?"
"Well,"--Hugh was all ready--"will you let Pap-pend.i.c.k, one of the first authorities in Europe, a good friend of mine, in fact more or less my master, and who is generally to be found at Brussels? I happen to know he knows your picture--he once spoke to me of it; and he"ll go and look again at the Verona one, he"ll go and judge our issue, if I apply to him, in the light of certain new tips that I shall be able to give him."
Lord Theign appeared to wonder. "If you "apply" to him?"
"Like a shot, I believe, if I ask it of him--as a service."
"A service to _you?_ He"ll be very obliging," his lordship smiled.
"Well, I"ve obliged _him!_" Hugh readily retorted.
"The obligation will be to we"--Lord Theign spoke more formally.
"Well, the satisfaction," said Hugh, "will be to all of us. The things Pappend.i.c.k has seen he intensely, ineffaceably keeps in mind, to every detail; so that he"ll tell me--as no one else really can--if the Verona man is _your_ man."
"But then," asked Mr. Bender, "we"ve got to believe anyway what he says?"
"The market," said Lord John with emphasis, "would have to believe it--that"s the point."
"Oh," Hugh returned lightly, "the market will have nothing to do with it, I hope; but I think you"ll feel when he has spoken that you really know where you are."
Mr. Bender couldn"t doubt of that. "Oh, if he gives us a bigger thing we won"t complain. Only, how long will it take him to get there? I want him to start right away."
"Well, as I"m sure he"ll be deeply interested----"
"We _may_"--Mr. Bender took it straight up--"get news next week?"
Hugh addressed his reply to Lord Theign; it was already a little too much as if he and the American between them were s.n.a.t.c.hing the case from that possessor"s hands. "The day I hear from Pappend.i.c.k you shall have a full report. And," he conscientiously added, "if I"m proved to have been unfortunately wrong----!"
His lordship easily pointed the moral. "You"ll have caused me some inconvenience."
"Of course I shall," the young man unreservedly agreed--"like a wanton meddling a.s.s!" His candour, his freedom had decidedly a note of their own. "But my conviction, after those moments with your picture, was too strong for me not to speak--and, since you allow it, I face the danger and risk the test."
"I allow it of course in the form of business." This produced in Hugh a certain blankness. ""Business"?" "If I consent to the inquiry I pay for the inquiry." Hugh demurred. "Even if I turn out mistaken?" "You make me in any event your proper charge." The young man thought again, and then as for vague accommodation: "Oh, my charge won"t be high!"
"Ah," Mr. Bender protested, "it ought to be handsome if the thing"s marked _up_!" After which he looked at his watch. "But I guess I"ve got to go, Lord Theign, though your lovely old d.u.c.h.ess--for it"s to _her_ I"ve lost my heart--does cry out for me again."
"You"ll find her then still there," Lord John observed with emphasis, but with his eyes for the time on Lord Theign; "and if you want another look at her I"ll presently come and take one too."
"I"ll order your car to the garden-front," Lord Theign added to this; "you"ll reach it from the saloon, but I"ll see you again first."
Mr. Bender glared as with the round full force of his pair of motor lamps. "Well, if you"re ready to talk about anything, I am. Good-bye, Mr. Crimble."
"Good-bye, Mr. Bender." But Hugh, addressing their host while his fellow-guest returned to the saloon, broke into the familiarity of confidence. "As if you _could_ be ready to "talk"!"
This produced on the part of the others present a mute exchange that could only have denoted surprise at all the irrepressible young outsider thus projected upon them took for granted. "I"ve an idea," said Lord John to his friend, "that you"re quite ready to talk with _me_."
Hugh then, with his appet.i.te so richly quickened, could but rejoice.
"Lady Grace spoke to me of things in the library."
"You"ll find it _that_ way"--Lord Theign gave the indication.