“Ah, but take it in that way not for what it is but for what it isn’t.”
“We know nothing about what it ‘isn’t,’” said Mr. Bender, “after all that has happened—we’ve only learned a little better every day what it is.”
“You mean,” his companion asked, “the biggest bone of artistic contention——?”
“Yes,”—he took it from her—“the biggest that has been thrown into the arena for quite a while. I guess I can do with it for that.”
Lady Sandgate, on this, after a moment, renewed her personal advance; it was as if she had now made sure of the soundness of her main bridge. “Well, if it’s the biggest bone I won’t touch it; I’ll leave it to be mauled by my betters. But since his lordship has asked me to name a price, dear Mr. Bender, I’ll name one—and as you prefer big prices I’ll try to make it suit you. Only it won’t be for the portrait of a person nobody is agreed about. The whole world is agreed, you know, about my great-grandmother.”
“Oh, shucks, Lady Sandgate!”—and her visitor turned from her with the hunch of overcharged shoulders.
But she apparently felt that she held him, or at least that even if such a conviction might be fatuous she must now put it to the touch. “You’ve been delivered into my hands—too charmingly; and you won’t really pretend that you don’t recognise that and in fact rather like it.”
He faced about to her again as to a case of coolness unparalleled—though indeed with a quick lapse of real interest in the question of whether he had been artfully practised upon; an indifference to bad debts or peculation like that of some huge hotel or other business involving a margin for waste. He could afford, he could work waste too, clearly—and what was it, that term, you might have felt him ask, but a mean measure, anyway? quite as the “artful,” opposed to his larger game, would be the hiding and pouncing of children at play. “Do I gather that those uncanny words of his were just meant to put me off?” he inquired. And then as she but boldly and smilingly shrugged, repudiating responsibility, “Look here, Lady Sandgate, ain’t you honestly going to help me?” he pursued.
This engaged her sincerity without affecting her gaiety. “Mr. Bender, Mr. Bender, I’ll help you if you’ll help me!”
“You’ll really get me something from him to go on with?”