Craddock had given up wasting amiability on that desert of a playwright, and was standing close to the other two. Quite involuntarily Charles glanced at him, and he had one moment's remote uneasiness ... he could not remember if he had given Charles a hundred pounds or not. But it really was of no importance. Should Charles say anything, what was easier than to look into so petty a mistake and rectify it? But Charles said nothing whatever.
Ward turned and saw Craddock close to him.
"I was saying to Mr. Lathom," he said, "that there were no more full length copies to be had for a hundred pounds, any more than there are any more original Reynolds of that calibre to be had for what I gave for Mr. Wroughton's."
"What did you give?" asked Charles deliberately. He felt his heart beat in his throat as he waited for the answer.
"Well, don't you tell anyone, Mr. Lathom," he said, "but I got it for ten thousand pounds. But I've felt ever since as if I had been robbing Mr. Wroughton."
This time Charles did not look at Mr. Craddock at all.
"Yes, I suppose that's cheap," he said, "considering what an enormous price a fine Reynolds fetches."
"Yes: now I suppose, Mr. Lathom, that portrait of your mother is not for sale. I am building, I may tell you, a sort of annex, or Luxembourg, to my picture gallery at Berta, entirely for modern artists. I should like to see that there: I should indeed."
Charles smiled.
"You must talk over that with Mr. Craddock," he said. "It belongs to him."