“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.”