Hugh Crimble had come back from his voyage of discovery, and it was visible as he stood there flushed and quite radiant that he had caught in his approach Lord Theign’s last inquiry and Mr. Bender’s reply to it. You would have imputed to him on the spot the lively possession of a new idea, the sustaining sense of a message important enough to justify his irruption. He looked from one to the other of the three men, scattered a little by the sight of him, but attached eyes of recognition then to Lord Theign’s, whom he remained an instant longer communicatively smiling at. After which, as you might have gathered, he all confidently plunged, taking up the talk where the others had left it. “I should say, Lord Theign, if you’ll allow me, in regard to what you appear to have been discussing, that it depends a good deal on just that question—of what your Moretto, at any rate, may be presumed or proved to ‘be.’ Let me thank you,” he cheerfully went on, “for your kind leave to go over your treasures.”

The personage he so addressed was, as we know, nothing if not generally affable; yet if that was just then apparent it was through a shade of coolness for the slightly heated familiarity of so plain, or at least so free, a young man in eye-glasses, now for the first time definitely apprehended. “Oh, I’ve scarcely ‘treasures’—but I’ve some things of interest.”

Hugh, however, entering the opulent circle, as it were, clearly took account of no breath of a chill. “I think possible, my lord, that you’ve a great treasure—if you’ve really so high a rarity as a splendid Manto-vano.”

“A ‘Mantovano’?” You wouldn’t have been sure that his lordship didn’t pronounce the word for the first time in his life.

“There have been supposed to be only seven real examples about the world; so that if by an extraordinary chance you find yourself the possessor of a magnificent eighth——”

But Lord John had already broken in. “Why, there you are, Mr. Bender!”

“Oh, Mr. Bender, with whom I’ve made acquaintance,” Hugh returned, “was there as it began to work in me—”

“That your Moretto, Lord Theign”—Mr. Bender took their informant up—“isn’t, after all, a Moretto at all.” And he continued amusedly to Hugh: “It began to work in you, sir, like very strong drink!”

“Do I understand you to suggest,” Lord Theign asked of the startling young man, “that my precious picture isn’t genuine?”

Well, Hugh knew exactly what he suggested. “As a picture, Lord Theign, as a great portrait, one of the most genuine things in Europe. But it strikes me as probable that from far back—for reasons!—there has been a wrong attribution; that the work has been, in other words, traditionally, obstinately miscalled. It has passed for a Moretto, and at first I quite took it for one; but I suddenly, as I looked and looked and saw and saw, began to doubt, and now I know why I doubted.”

Lord Theign had during this speech kept his eyes on the ground; but he raised them to Mr. Crimble’s almost palpitating presence for the remark: “I’m bound to say that I hope you’ve some very good grounds!”

“I’ve three or four, Lord Theign; they seem to me of the best—as yet. They made me wonder and wonder—and then light splendidly broke.”

His lordship didn’t stint his attention. “Reflected, you mean, from other Mantovanos—that I don’t know?”

“I mean from those I know myself,” said Hugh; “and I mean from fine analogies with one in particular.”

“Analogies that in all these years, these centuries, have so remarkably not been noticed?”

“Well,” Hugh competently explained, “they’re a sort of thing the very sense of, the value and meaning of, are a highly modern—in fact a quite recent growth.”

Lord John at this professed with cordiality that he at least quite understood. “Oh, we know a lot more about our pictures and things than ever our ancestors did!”

“Well, I guess it’s enough for me,” Mr. Bender contributed, “that your ancestors knew enough to get ‘em!”

“Ah, that doesn’t go so far,” cried Hugh, “unless we ourselves know enough to keep ‘em!”

The words appeared to quicken in a manner Lord Theign’s view of the speaker. “Were your ancestors, Mr. Crimble, great collectors?”

Arrested, it might be, in his general assurance, Hugh wondered and smiled. “Mine—collectors? Oh, I’m afraid I haven’t any—to speak of. Only it has seemed to me for a long time,” he added, “that on that head we should all feel together.”

Lord Theign looked for a moment as if these were rather large presumptions; then he put them in their place a little curtly. “It’s one thing to keep our possessions for ourselves—it’s another to keep them for other people.”

“Well,” Hugh good-humouredly returned, “I’m perhaps not so absolutely sure of myself, if you press me, as that I sha’n’t be glad of a higher and wiser opinion—I mean than my own. It would be awfully interesting, if you’ll allow me to say so, to have the judgment of one or two of the great men.”

“You’re not yourself, Mr. Crimble, one of the great men?” his host asked with tempered irony.

“Well, I guess he’s going to be, anyhow,” Mr. Bender cordially struck in; “and this remarkable exhibition of intelligence may just let him loose on the world, mayn’t it?”

“Thank you, Mr. Bender!”—and Hugh obviously tried to look neither elated nor snubbed. “I’ve too much still to learn, but I’m learning every day, and I shall have learnt immensely this afternoon.”

“Pretty well at my expense, however,” Lord Theign laughed, “if you demolish a name we’ve held for generations so dear.”

“You may have held the name dear, my lord,” his young critic answered; “but my whole point is that, if I’m right, you’ve held the picture itself cheap.”

“Because a Mantovano,” said Lord John, “is so much greater a value?”

Hugh met his eyes a moment “Are you talking of values pecuniary?”

“What values are not pecuniary?”

Hugh might, during his hesitation, have been imagined to stand off a little from the question. “Well, some things have in a higher degree that one, and some have the associational or the factitious, and some the clear artistic.”

“And some,” Mr. Bender opined, “have them all—in the highest degree. But what you mean,” he went on, “is that a Mantovano would come higher under the hammer than a Moretto?”

“Why, sir,” the young man returned, “there aren’t any, as I’ve just stated, to ‘come.’ I account—or I easily can—for every one of the very small number.”

“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 nobleman. “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 circumspection 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-pendick, 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 Pappendick 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 snatching the case from that possessor’s hands. “The day I hear from Pappendick 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 ass!” 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 Duchess—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 appetite 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.

“Thanks,” said Hugh elatedly, and hastened away.

Lord John, when he had gone, found relief in a quick comment. “Very sharp, no doubt—but he wants taking down.”

The master of Dedborough wouldn’t have put it so crudely, but the young expert did bring certain things home. “The people my daughters, in the exercise of a wild freedom, do pick up——!”

“Well, don’t you see that all you’ve got to do—on the question we’re dealing with—is to claim your very own wild freedom? Surely I’m right in feeling you,” Lord John further remarked, “to have jumped at once to my idea that Bender is heaven-sent—and at what they call the psychologic moment, don’t they?—to point that moral. Why look anywhere else for a sum of money that—smaller or greater—you can find with perfect ease in that extraordinarily bulging pocket?”

Lord Theign, slowly pacing the hall again, threw up his hands. “Ah, with ‘perfect ease’ can scarcely be said!”

“Why not?—when he absolutely thrusts his dirty dollars down your throat.”

“Oh, I’m not talking of ease to him,” Lord Theign returned—“I’m talking of ease to myself. I shall have to make a sacrifice.”

“Why not then—for so great a convenience—gallantly make it?”

“Ah, my dear chap, if you want me to sell my Sir Joshua——!”

But the horror in the words said enough, and Lord John felt its chill. “I don’t make a point of that—God forbid! But there are other things to which the objection wouldn’t apply.”

“You see how it applies—in the case of the Moret-to—for him. A mere Moretto,” said Lord Theign, “is too cheap—for a Yankee ‘on the spend.’”

“Then the Mantovano wouldn’t be.”

“It remains to be proved that it is a Mantovano.”

“Well,” said Lord John, “go into it.”

“Hanged if I won’t!” his friend broke out after a moment. “It would suit me. I mean”—the explanation came after a brief intensity of thought—“the possible size of his cheque would.”

“Oh,” said Lord John gaily, “I guess there’s no limit to the possible size of his cheque!”

“Yes, it would suit me, it would suit me!” the elder man, standing there, audibly mused. But his air changed and a lighter question came up to him as he saw his daughter reappear at the door from the terrace. “Well, the infant horde?” he immediately put to her.

Lady Grace came in, dutifully accounting for them. “They’ve marched off—in a huge procession.”

“Thank goodness! And our friends?”

“All playing tennis,” she said—“save those who are sitting it out.” To which she added, as to explain her return: “Mr. Crimble has gone?”

Lord John took upon him to say. “He’s in the library, to which you addressed him—making discoveries.”

“Not then, I hope,” she smiled, “to our disadvantage!”

“To your very great honour and glory.” Lord John clearly valued the effect he might produce.

“Your Moretto of Brescia—do you know what it really and spendidly is?” And then as the girl, in her surprise, but wondered: “A Mantovano, neither more nor less. Ever so much more swagger.”

“A Mantovano?” Lady Grace echoed. “Why, how tremendously jolly!”

Her father was struck. “Do you know the artist—of whom I had never heard?”

“Yes, something of the little that is known.” And she rejoiced as her knowledge came to her. “He’s a tremendous swell, because, great as he was, there are but seven proved examples——”

“With this of yours,” Lord John broke in, “there are eight.”

“Then why haven’t I known about him?” Lord Theign put it as if so many other people were guilty for this.

His daughter was the first to plead for the vague body. “Why, I suppose in order that you should have exactly this pleasure, father.”

“Oh, pleasures not desired are like acquaintances not sought—they rather bore one!” Lord Theign sighed. With which he moved away from her.

Her eyes followed him an instant—then she smiled at their guest. “Is he bored at having the higher prize—if you’re sure it is the higher?”

“Mr. Crimble is sure—because if he isn’t,” Lord John added, “he’s a wretch.”

“Well,” she returned, “as he’s certainly not a wretch it must be true. And fancy,” she exclaimed further, though as more particularly for herself, “our having suddenly incurred this immense debt to him!”

“Oh, I shall pay Mr. Crimble!” said her father, who had turned round.

The whole question appeared to have provoked in Lord John a rise of spirits and a flush of humour. “Don’t you let him stick it on.”

His host, however, bethinking himself, checked him. “Go you to Mr. Bender straight!”

Lord John saw the point. “Yes—till he leaves. But I shall find you here, shan’t I?” he asked with all earnestness of Lady Grace.

She had an hesitation, but after a look at her father she assented. “I’ll wait for you.”

“Then À tantÔt!” It made him show for happy as, waving his hand at her, he proceeded to seek Mr. Bender in presence of the object that most excited that gentleman’s appetite—to say nothing of the effect involved on Lord John’s own.