III
"Ah, Mr. Crimble," he cordially inquired, "you've come with your greatnews?"
Hugh caught the allusion, it would have seemed, but after a moment."News of the Moretto? No, Mr. Bender, I haven't news _yet_." But headded as with high candour for the visitor's motion of disappointment:"I think I warned you, you know, that it would take three or fourweeks."
"Well, in _my_ country," Mr. Bender returned with disgust, "it wouldtake three or four minutes! Can't you make 'em step more lively?"
"I'm expecting, sir," said Hugh good-humouredly, "a report from hour tohour."
"Then will you let me have it right off?"
Hugh indulged in a pause; after which very frankly: "Ah, it's scarcelyfor you, Mr. Bender, that I'm acting!"
The great collector was but briefly checked. "Well, can't you just actfor Art?"
"Oh, you're doing that yourself so powerfully," Hugh laughed, "that Ithink I had best leave it to you!"
His friend looked at him as some inspector on circuit might look at anew improvement. "Don't you want to go round acting _with_ me?"
"Go 'on tour,' as it were? Oh, frankly, Mr. Bender," Hugh said, "if Ihad any weight----!"
"You'd add it to your end of the beam? Why, what have I done that _you_should go back on me--after working me up so down there? The worst I'vedone," Mr. Bender continued, "is to refuse that Moretto."
"Has it deplorably been _offered_ you?" our young man cried,unmistakably and sincerely affected. After which he went on, as hisfellow-visitor only eyed him hard, not, on second thoughts, givingthe owner of the great work away: "Then why are you--as if you were abanished Romeo--so keen for news from Verona?" To this odd mixture ofbusiness and literature Mr. Bender made no reply, contenting himselfwith but a large vague blandness that wore in him somehow the mark oftested utility; so that Hugh put him another question: "Aren't you here,sir, on the chance of the Mantovano?"
"I'm here," he then imperturbably said, "because Lord Theign has wiredme to meet him. Ain't you here for that yourself?"
Hugh betrayed for a moment his enjoyment of a "big" choice of answers."Dear, no! I've but been in, by Lady Sandgate's leave, to see that grandLawrence."
"Ah yes, she's very kind about it--one does go 'in.'" After which Mr.Bender had, even in the atmosphere of his danger, a throb of curiosity."Is any one _after_ that grand Lawrence?"
"Oh, I hope not," Hugh laughed, "unless you again dreadfully are:wonderful thing as it is and so just in its right place there."
"You call it," Mr. Bender impartially inquired, "a _very_ wonderfulthing?"
"Well, as a Lawrence, it has quite bowled me over"--Hugh spoke as forthe strictly aesthetic awkwardness of that. "But you know I take mypictures hard." He gave a punch to his hat, pressed for time in thisconnection as he was glad truly to appear to his friend. "I must make mylittle _rapport_." Yet before it he did seek briefly to explain. "We'rea band of young men who care--and we watch the great things. Also--for Imust give you the real truth about myself--we watch the great people."
"Well, I guess I'm used to being watched--if that's the worst you cando." To which Mr. Bender added in his homely way: "But you know, Mr.Crimble, what I'm _really_ after."
Hugh's strategy on this would again have peeped out for us. "The man inthis morning's 'Journal' appears at least to have discovered."
"Yes, the man in this morning's 'Journal' has discovered three or fourweeks--as it appears to take you here for everything--after my beginningto talk. Why, they knew I was talking _that_ time ago on the otherside."
"Oh, they know things in the States," Hugh cheerfully agreed, "soindependently of their happening! But you must have talked loud."
"Well, I haven't so much talked as raved," Mr. Bender conceded--"for I'mafraid that when I do want a thing I rave till I get it. You heard meat Ded-borough, and your enterprising daily press has at last caught theecho."
"Then they'll make up for lost time! But have you done it," Hugh asked,"to prepare an alibi?"
"An alibi?"
"By 'raving,' as you say, the saddle on the wrong horse. I don't thinkyou at all believe you'll get the Sir Joshua--but meanwhile we shallhave cleared up the question of the Moretto."
Mr. Bender, imperturbable, didn't speak till he had done justice to thispicture of his subtlety. "Then, why on earth do you want to boom theMoretto?"
"You ask that," said Hugh, "because it's the boomed thing that's most inperil."
"Well, it's the big, the bigger, the biggest things, and if you dragtheir value to the light why shouldn't we want to grab them and carrythem off--the same as all of _you_ originally did?"
"Ah, not quite the same," Hugh smiled--"that I _will_ say for you!"
"Yes, you stick it on now--you _have_ got an eye for the rise in values.But I grant you your unearned increment, and you ought to be mighty gladthat, to such a time, I'll pay it you."
Our young man kept, during a moment's thought, his eyes on hiscompanion, and then resumed with all intensity and candour: "You mayeasily, Mr. Bender, be too much for me--as you appear too much for fargreater people. But may I ask you, very earnestly, for your word on_this_, as to any case in which that happens--that when precious things,things we are to lose here, _are_ knocked down to you, you'll let us atleast take leave of them, let us have a sight of them in London, beforethey're borne off?"
Mr. Bender's big face fell almost with a crash. "Hand them over, youmean, to the sandwich men on Bond Street?"
"To one or other of the placard and poster men--I don't insist on theinserted human slice! Let the great values, as a compensation to us, beon view for three or four weeks."
"You ask me," Mr. Bender returned, "for a _general_ assurance to thateffect?"
"Well, a particular one--so it be particular enough," Hugh said--"willdo just for now. Let me put in my plea for the issue--well, of the valuethat's actually in the scales."
"The Mantovano-Moretto?"
"The Moretto-Mantovano!"
Mr. Bender carnivorously smiled. "Hadn't we better know which it isfirst?"
Hugh had a motion of practical indifference for this. "The publicinterest--playing so straight on the question--may help to settle it.By which I mean that it will profit enormously--the question ofprobability, of identity itself will--by the discussion it will create.The discussion will promote certainty----"
"And certainty," Mr. Bender massively mused, "will kick up a row."
"_Of course_ it will kick up a row!"--Hugh thoroughly guaranteed that."You'll be, for the month, the best-abused man in England--if youventure to remain here at all; except, naturally, poor Lord Theign."
"Whom it won't be my interest, at the same time, to worry into backingdown."
"But whom it will be exceedingly _mine_ to practise on"--and Hughlaughed as at the fun before them--"if I may entertain the sweet hopeof success. The only thing is--from my point of view," he went on--"thatbacking down before what he will call vulgar clamour isn't in the leastin his traditions, nothing less so; and that if there should be reallytoo much of it for his taste or his nerves he'll set his handsome faceas a stone and never budge an inch. But at least again what I appeal toyou for will have taken place--the picture will have been seen by a lotof people who'll care."
"It will have been seen," Mr. Bender amended--"on the mere contingencyof my acquisition of it--only if its present owner consents."
"'Consents'?" Hugh almost derisively echoed; "why, he'll propose ithimself, he'll insist on it, he'll put it through, once he's angryenough--as angry, I mean, as almost any public criticism of a personalact of his will be sure to make him; and I'm afraid the strikingcriticism, or at least animadversion, of this morning, will have blownon his flame of bravado."
Inevitably a student of character, Mr. Bender rose to the occasion."Yes, I guess he's pretty mad."
"They've imputed to him"--Hugh but wanted to abound in that sense--"anintention of which after all he isn't guilty."
"So that"--his listener glowed with interest
ed optimism--"if they don'tlook out, if they impute it to him again, I guess he'll just go and beguilty!"
Hugh might at this moment have shown to an initiated eye as fairlyelated by the sense of producing something of the effect he had hoped."You entertain the fond vision of lashing them up to that mistake, ohfisher in troubled waters?" And then with a finer art, as his companion,expansively bright but crudely acute, eyed him in turn as if to sound_him_: "The strongest thing in such a type--one does make out--is hisresentment of a liberty taken; and the most natural furthermore isquite that he should feel almost anything you do take uninvited from thegroaning board of his banquet of life to _be_ such a liberty."
Mr. Bender participated thus at his perceptive ease in the exposedaristocratic illusion. "Yes, I guess he has always lived as he likes,the way those of you who have got things fixed for them _do_, over here;and to have to quit it on account of unpleasant remark--"
But he gave up thoughtfully trying to express what this must be; reducedto the mere synthetic interjection "My!"
"That's it, Mr. Bender," Hugh said for the consecration of such a moral;"he won't quit it without a hard struggle."
Mr. Bender hereupon at last gave himself quite gaily away as to his highcalculation of impunity. "Well, I guess he won't struggle too hard forme to hold on to him if I _want_ to!"
"In the thick of the conflict then, however that may be," Hugh returned,"don't forget what I've urged on you--the claim of our desolatecountry."
But his friend had an answer to this. "My natural interest, Mr.Crimble--considering what I do for it--is in the claim of ours. But Iwish you were on my side!"
"Not so much," Hugh hungrily and truthfully laughed, "as I wish you wereon mine!" Decidedly, none the less, he had to go. "Good-bye--for anotherlook here!"
He reached the doorway of the second room, where, however, hiscompanion, freshly alert at this, stayed him by a gesture. "How much isshe really worth?"
"'She'?" Hugh, staring a moment, was miles at sea. "Lady Sandgate?"
"Her great-grandmother."
A responsible answer was prevented--the butler was again with them; hehad opened wide the other door and he named to Mr. Bender the personageunder his convoy. "Lord John!"
Hugh caught this from the inner threshold, and it gave him his escape."Oh, ask _that_ friend!" With which he sought the further passage to thestaircase and street, while Lord John arrived in charge of Mr. Gotch,who, having remarked to the two occupants of the front drawing-room thather ladyship would come, left them together.