"The price does surprise me," he admitted.
"Perfectly wonderful!" said Quinney. "The real stuff—if you could have found such a quantity—would have run into a couple of thousand."
"But, pardon me, aren't you doing business upon rather a novel plan?"
"That's as may be, my lord. I propose to keep the very best fakes and to label 'em as such. I have the genuine stuff, too. Take Oriental china. Look at those jars!"
He was fairly started, aglow with excitement and enthusiasm, oblivious of himself and his visitor, pouring out a flow of intimate information, unconsciously displaying himself rather than his wares, forcing his queer personality upon a man of the world, a connoisseur of men as well as porcelain. Inevitably, his genius—long afterwards recognized as such—for beauty challenged the attention of his listener—himself a lover of beauty. They met as equals upon the common ground of similar tastes. Quinney let himself go. In his perfervid excitement he gestured as he did before Susan; the floor was strewn with aitches; grammar halted feebly behind his impassioned sentences. There were things, lots o' things, that were just right—perfection; and one of 'em—one bloomin' bit o' real stuff, one tiny cup, potted by a master, painted by an artist, gilded by an honest man who used the purest gold, twenty-two carat, by Gum!—was worth all the beastly rubbish in the world. He ended upon the familiar note.
"I hate rubbish! Rubbish is wicked, rubbish is cruel, rubbish poisons the world. I was brought up amongst it, and that's why I loathe it and fear it."
When he finished Lord Mel held out his hand.
"Mr. Quinney," he said simply, "I am happy to make your acquaintance; you are building even better than you know."
It is quite impossible to exaggerate the results that flowed directly and indirectly from this memorable interview. In the first place, Quinney secured a patron and friend who was all-powerful in a large county. Lord Mel kept open house; he entertained the greatest men in the kingdom. He sent his guests to the man whom he affirmed positively to be the only honest dealer that he knew; he brought experts to whom Quinney listened feverishly, sucking their special knowledge from them, as a greedy child sucks an orange. He allowed our hero access to his own collections, permitted him to make an inventory of them, and later discarded upon his advice certain questionable specimens. In a word, this oddly-assorted couple became friends, comrades, in their indefatigable quest for beautiful objects. It was Lord Mel who dispatched Quinney to Ireland—one of his richest hunting grounds. In Ireland Quinney fell passionately in love with old cut-glass, at a time when the commercial demand for it was almost negligible. In fine, Lord Mel discovered Quinney and trained him to discover himself.
III