"Why!" said the rich man, puzzled, "you offered it for two hundred, not five minutes ago."
"Yes; and you pretended to think I meant two tens."
"Offended you, I fear."
"At all events, betrayed so much ignorance of painting, that I would rather not have a picture of mine in your house."
"You're the first man ever presumed to tell me I was ignorant of painting," said Mr. Baddeley, now thoroughly indignant.
"You have heard the truth, then, for the first time," said Percivale, and resumed his work.
Mr. Baddeley walked out of the study.
I am not sure that he was so very ignorant. He had been in the way of buying popular pictures for some time, paying thousands for certain of them. I suspect he had eye enough to see that my husband's would probably rise in value, and, with the true huckster spirit, was ambitious of boasting how little he had given compared with what they were really worth.
Percivale in this case was doubtless rude. He had an insuperable aversion to men of Mr. Baddeley's class,—men who could have no position but for their money, and who yet presumed upon it, as if it were gifts and graces, genius and learning, judgment and art, all in one. He was in the habit of saying that the plutocracy, as he called it, ought to be put down,—that is, negatively and honestly,—by showing them no more respect than you really entertained for them. Besides, although he had no great favors for Cousin Judy's husband, he yet bore Mr. Baddeley a grudge for the way in which he had treated one with whom, while things went well with him, he had been ready enough to exchange hospitalities.
Before long, through Lady Bernard, he sold a picture at a fair price; and soon after, seeing in a shop-window the one Mr. —— had sold to Mr. Baddeley, marked ten pounds, went in and bought it. Within the year he sold it for a hundred and fifty.