VII
Mr. Bender indeed, formidably advancing, scarce had use for thisassistance. "Happy to meet you--especially in your beautiful home,Lord Theign." To which he added while the master of Dedborough stoodgood-humouredly passive to his approach: "I've been round, by your kindpermission and the light of nature, and haven't required support; thoughif I had there's a gentleman there who seemed prepared to allow me anyamount." Mr. Bender, out of his abundance, evoked as by a suggestivehand this contributory figure. "A young, spare, nervous gentleman witheye-glasses--I guess he's an author. A friend of yours too?" he asked ofLord John.
The answer was prompt and emphatic. "No, the gentleman is no friend atall of mine, Mr. Bender."
"A friend of my daughter's," Lord Theign easily explained. "I hopethey're looking after him."
"Oh, they took care he had tea and bread and butter to any extent; andwere so good as to move something," Mr. Bender conscientiously added,"so that he could get up on a chair and see straight into the Moretto."
This was a touch, however, that appeared to affect Lord Johnunfavourably. "Up on a chair? I say!"
Mr. Bender took another view. "Why, I got right up myself--a little moreand I'd almost have begun to paw it! He got me quite interested"--theproprietor of the picture would perhaps care to know--"in that Moretto."And it was on these lines that Mr. Bender continued to advance. "I takeit that your biggest value, however, Lord Theign, is your splendid SirJoshua. Our friend there has a great deal to say about that too--but itdidn't lead to our moving any more furniture." On which he paused as toenjoy, with a show of his fine teeth, his host's reassurance. "It _has_yet, my impression of that picture, sir, led to something else. Are youprepared, Lord Theign, to entertain a proposition?"
Lord Theign met Mr. Bender's eyes while this inquirer left these fewportentous words to speak for themselves. "To the effect that I part toyou with 'The Beautiful Duchess of Waterbridge'? No, Mr. Bender, such aproposition would leave me intensely cold."
Lord John had meanwhile had a more headlong cry. "My dear Bender, I_envy_ you!"
"I guess you don't envy me," his friend serenely replied, "as much as Ienvy Lord Theign." And then while Mr. Bender and the latter continued toface each other searchingly and firmly: "What I allude to is an overtureof a strong and simple stamp--such as perhaps would shed a softer lighton the difficulties raised by association and attachment. I've had someexperience of first shocks, and I'd be glad to meet you as man to man."
Mr. Bender was, quite clearly, all genial and all sincere; he intendedno irony and used, consciously, no great freedom. Lord Theign, not lessevidently, saw this, and it permitted him amusement. "As rich man topoor man is how I'm to understand it? For me to meet _you_," he added,"I should have to be tempted--and I'm not even temptable. So there weare," he blandly smiled.
His blandness appeared even for a moment to set an example to Lord John."'The Beautiful Duchess of Waterbridge,' Mr. Bender, is a golden appleof one of those great family trees of which respectable people don't lopoff the branches whose venerable shade, in this garish and denuded age,they so much enjoy."
Mr. Bender looked at him as if he had cut some irrelevant caper. "Thenif they don't sell their ancestors where in the world are all theancestors bought?"
"Doesn't it for the moment sufficiently answer your question," LordTheign asked, "that they're definitely not bought at Dedborough?"
"Why," said Mr. Bender with a wealthy patience, "you talk as if it weremy interest to be _reasonable_--which shows how little you understand.I'd be ashamed--with the lovely ideas I have--if I didn't make youkick." And his sturdy smile for it all fairly proclaimed his faith."Well, I guess I can wait!"
This again in turn visibly affected Lord John: marking the moment fromwhich he, in spite of his cultivated levity, allowed an intenser andmore sustained look to keep straying toward their host. "Mr. Bender'sbound to _have_ something!"
It was even as if after a minute Lord Theign had been reached by hisfriend's mute pressure. "'Something'?"
"Something, Mr. Bender?" Lord John insisted.
It made their visitor rather sharply fix him. "Why, have _you_ aninterest, Lord John?"
This personage, though undisturbed by the challenge, if such it was,referred it to Lord Theign. "Do you authorise me to speak--a little--asif I have an interest?"
Lord Theign gave the appeal--and the speaker--a certain attention, andthen appeared rather sharply to turn away from them. "My dear fellow,you may amuse yourself at my expense as you like!"
"Oh, I don't mean at your expense," Lord John laughed--"I mean at Mr.Bender's!"
"Well, go ahead, Lord John," said that gentleman, always easy, butalways too, as you would have felt, aware of everything--"go ahead, butdon't sweetly hope to create me in any desire that doesn't already existin the germ. The attempt has often been made, over here--has in factbeen organised on a considerable scale; but I guess I've got somepeculiarity, for it doesn't seem as if the thing could be done. If thegerm is there, on the other hand," Mr. Bender conceded, "it developsindependently of all encouragement."
Lord John communicated again as in a particular sense with Lord Theign."He thinks I really mean to _offer_ him something!"
Lord Theign, who seemed to wish to advertise a degree of detachment fromthe issue, or from any other such, strolled off, in his restlessness,toward the door that opened to the terrace, only stopping on his wayto light a cigarette from a matchbox on a small table. It was but afterdoing so that he made the remark: "Ah, Mr. Bender may easily be too muchfor you!"
"That makes me the more sorry, sir," said his visitor, "not to have beenenough for _you!_"
"I risk it, at any rate," Lord John went on--"I put you, Bender, thequestion of whether you wouldn't Move,' as you say, to acquire thatMoretto."
Mr. Bender's large face had a commensurate gaze. "As I say? I haven'tsaid anything of the sort!"
"But you do 'love' you know," Lord John slightly overgrimaced.
"I don't when I don't want to. I'm different from most people--I canlove or not as I like. The trouble with that Moretto," Mr. Bendercontinued, "is that it ain't what I'm after."
His "after" had somehow, for the ear, the vividness of a sharp whackon the resisting surface of things, and was concerned doubtless in LordJohn's speaking again across to their host. "The worst he can do for me,you see, is to refuse it."
Lord Theign, who practically had his back turned and was fairly dandlingabout in his impatience, tossed out to the terrace the cigarette he hadbut just lighted. Yet he faced round to reply: "It's the very first timein the history of this house (a long one, Mr. Bender) that a picture, oranything else in it, has been offered----!"
It was not imperceptible that even if he hadn't dropped Mr. Bendermightn't have been markedly impressed. "Then it must be the very firsttime such an offer has failed."
"Oh, it isn't that we in the least press it!" Lord Theign quitenaturally laughed.
"Ah, I beg your pardon--I press it very hard!" And Lord John, as takingfrom his face and manner a cue for further humorous license, went so faras to emulate, though sympathetically enough, their companion's nativeform. "You don't mean to say you don't feel the interest of thatMoretto?"
Mr. Bender, quietly confident, took his time to reply. "Well, if you hadseen me up on that chair you'd have thought I did."
"Then you must have stepped down from the chair properly impressed."
"I stepped down quite impressed with that young man."
"Mr. Crimble?"--it came after an instant to Lord John. "With _his_opinion, really? Then I hope he's aware of the picture's value."
"You had better ask him," Mr. Bender observed.
"Oh, we don't depend here on the Mr. Crimbles!" Lord John returned.
Mr. Bender took a longer look at him. "Are you aware of the valueyourself?"
His friend resorted again, as for the amusement of the thing, to theirentertainer. "Am I aware of the value of the Moretto?"
Lord Theign, who had me
anwhile lighted another cigarette, appeared,a bit extravagantly smoking, to wish to put an end to his effect ofhovering aloof.
"That question needn't trouble us--when I see how much Mr. Benderhimself knows about it."
"Well, Lord Theign, I only know what that young man puts it at." Andthen as the others waited, "Ten thousand," said Mr. Bender.
"Ten thousand?" The owner of the work showed no emotion.
"Well," said Lord John again in Mr. Bender's style, "what's the matterwith ten thousand?"
The subject of his gay tribute considered. "There's nothing the matterwith ten thousand."
"Then," Lord Theign asked, "is there anything the matter with thepicture?"
"Yes, sir--I guess there is."
It gave an upward push to his lordship's eyebrows. "But what in theworld----?"
"Well, that's just the question!"
The eyebrows continued to rise. "Does he pretend there's a question ofwhether 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, isthat I've no use for a ten thousand picture."
"'No use?'"--the expression had an oddity. "But what's it your idea todo with such things?"
"I mean," Mr. Bender explained, "that a picture of that rank is not whatI'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 isthat 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 nodifficulty about _that_, I think!"
"Ah," said his guest, "you know the basis, sir, on which I'm ready topay."
"On the basis then of the Sir Joshua," Lord John inquired, "how farwould you go?"
Mr. Bender indicated by a gesture that on a question reduced to a moietyby its conditional form he could give but semi-satisfaction. "Well, I'dgo all the way."
"He wants, you see," Lord John elucidated, "an _ideally_ expensivething."
Lord Theign appeared to decide after a moment to enter into the pleasantspirit of this; which he did by addressing his younger friend. "Then whyshouldn'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 atthis moment of the reappearance of his fellow-explorer, he at oncesupplied a further light. "I guess this gentleman at any rate can tellyou."