"But—but—" the solicitor stammered, with indignant eagerness—"but do know whose it is?"
The picture represented a bit of country road, with a dung-heap, a duck-pond, a pig asleep, and some barn-door fowls.
"I know whose you think it is," replied Glazzard, coldly. His face still had an unhealthy pallor, and his eyes looked as if they had but just opened after the oppression of nightmare. "But it isn't."
"Come, come, Glazzard! you are too dictatorial, my boy."
Mr. Stark kept turning a heavy ring upon his finger, showing in face and tone that the connoisseur's dogmatism troubled him more than he wished to have it thought.
"Winterbottom warrants it," he added, with a triumphant jerk of his plump body.
"Then Winterbottom is either cheating or cheated. That is no Morland; take my word for it. Was that all you wanted me for?"
Mr. Stark's good-nature was severely tried. Mental suffering had made Glazzard worse than impolite; his familiar tone of authority on questions of art had become too frankly contemptuous.
"You're out of sorts this morning," conjectured his legal friend. "Let Morland be for the present. I had another reason for asking you to call, but don't stay unless you like."
Glazzard looked round the office.