"A motive? Great Jupiter! what has made you take so sudden an interest in the hidalgos?"
"You remember to whom Angelo said he had sold his picture?"
"The Spanish baron, De Argandarez. Ah! I see, you are looking him up."
"I am; and, do you know, I cannot find the name anywhere in this book."
"You haven't looked in the right place."
"Well, here is the book; examine it for yourself. Here is the list of barons. Find De Argandarez."
"Humph! I have no wish to qualify myself for a Spanish herald. I'll take your word for it that the name of Argandarez is not here, merely remarking that the book is dated 1898, and that therefore the fellow may have been created a baron since then, which will account for the omission of his name."
"What! When Angelo called him an old hidalgo of Aragon, and spoke of his ancestral walls, or ancestral castle, or something similar! At any rate, he used the word ancestral."
"Ha! I remember something of the sort," my uncle said, and the alert glance in his eye belied the indifference in his tone. "You are certain the name does not occur in this book? Hum! Unless it be an editorial oversight, our noble grandee would seem to have no existence, save in the imagination of Angelo. Il Divino is slightly given to romancing."