world----?"

"Well, that's just the question!"

The eyebrows continued to rise. "Does he pretend there's a question of
whether it _is_ a Moretto?"

"That's what he was up there trying to find out."

"But if the value's, according to himself, ten thousand----?"

"Why, of course," said Mr. Bender, "it's a fine work anyway."

"Then," Lord Theign brought good-naturedly out, "what's the matter with
_you_, Mr. Bender?"

That gentleman was perfectly clear. "The matter with me, Lord Theign, is
that I've no use for a ten thousand picture."

"'No use?'"--the expression had an oddity. "But what's it your idea to
do with such things?"

"I mean," Mr. Bender explained, "that a picture of that rank is not what
I'm after."

"The figure," said his noble host--speaking thus, under pressure,
commercially--"is beyond what you see your way to?"

But Lord John had jumped at the truth. "The matter with Mr. Bender is
that he sees his way much further."

"Further?" their companion echoed.

"The matter with Mr. Bender is that he wants to give millions."

Lord Theign sounded this abyss with a smile. "Well, there would be no
difficulty about _that_, I think!"

"Ah," said his guest, "you know the basis, sir, on which I'm ready to
pay."

"On the basis then of the Sir Joshua," Lord John inquired, "how far
would you go?"

Mr. Bender indicated by a gesture that on a question reduced to a moiety
by its conditional form he could give but semi-satisfaction. "Well, I'd
go all the way."

"He wants, you see," Lord John elucidated, "an _ideally_ expensive
thing."

Lord Theign appeared to decide after a moment to enter into the pleasant
spirit of this; which he did by addressing his younger friend. "Then why
shouldn't I make even the Moretto as expensive as he desires?"

"Because you can't do violence to _that_ master's natural modesty," Mr.
Bender declared before Lord John had time to speak. And conscious at
this moment of the reappearance of his fellow-explorer, he at once
supplied a further light. "I guess this gentleman at any rate can tell
you."

VIII

Hugh Crimble had come back from his voyage of discovery, and it was
visible as he stood there flushed and quite radiant that he had caught
in his approach Lord Theign's last inquiry and Mr. Bender's reply to it.
You would have imputed to him on the spot the lively possession of a new
idea, the sustaining sense of a message important enough to justify his
irruption. He