Resenting the suggestion, which restored all his nobler form, Lord Theign fairly drew himself up. “When did I ever in all my life back out?”
“Never, never in all your life of course!”—she dashed a bucketful at the flare. “And the picture after all——!”
“The picture after all”—he took her up in cold grim gallant despair—“has just been pronounced definitely priceless.” And then to meet her gaping ignorance: “By Mr. Crimble’s latest and apparently greatest adviser, who strongly stamps it a Mantovano and whose practical affidavit I now possess.”
Poor Lady Sandgate gaped but the more—she wondered and yearned. “Definitely priceless?”
“Definitely priceless.” After which he took from its place of lurking, considerately unfolding it, the goodly slip he had removed from her blotting-book. “Worth even more therefore than what Bender so blatantly offers.”
Her attention fell with interest, from the distance at which she stood, on this confirmatory document, her recognition of which was not immediate. “And is that the affidavit?”
“This is a cheque to your order, my lady, for ten thousand pounds.”
“Ten thousand?”—she echoed it with a shout.
“Drawn by some hand unknown,” he went on quietly.
“Unknown?”—again, in her muffled joy, she let it sound out.