“Well, I guess he’s going to be, anyhow,” Mr. Bender cordially struck in; “and this remarkable exhibition of intelligence may just let him loose on the world, mayn’t it?”
“Thank you, Mr. Bender!”—and Hugh obviously tried to look neither elated nor snubbed. “I’ve too much still to learn, but I’m learning every day, and I shall have learnt immensely this afternoon.”
“Pretty well at my expense, however,” Lord Theign laughed, “if you demolish a name we’ve held for generations so dear.”
“You may have held the name dear, my lord,” his young critic answered; “but my whole point is that, if I’m right, you’ve held the picture itself cheap.”
“Because a Mantovano,” said Lord John, “is so much greater a value?”
Hugh met his eyes a moment “Are you talking of values pecuniary?”
“What values are not pecuniary?”
Hugh might, during his hesitation, have been imagined to stand off a little from the question. “Well, some things have in a higher degree that one, and some have the associational or the factitious, and some the clear artistic.”
“And some,” Mr. Bender opined, “have them all—in the highest degree. But what you mean,” he went on, “is that a Mantovano would come higher under the hammer than a Moretto?”
“Why, sir,” the young man returned, “there aren’t any, as I’ve just stated, to ‘come.’ I account—or I easily can—for every one of the very small number.”