“Well, the satisfaction,” said Hugh, “will be to all of us. The things Pappendick has seen he intensely, ineffaceably keeps in mind, to every detail; so that he’ll tell me—as no one else really can—if the Verona man is your man.”
“But then,” asked Mr. Bender, “we’ve got to believe anyway what he says?”
“The market,” said Lord John with emphasis, “would have to believe it—that’s the point.”
“Oh,” Hugh returned lightly, “the market will have nothing to do with it, I hope; but I think you’ll feel when he has spoken that you really know where you are.”
Mr. Bender couldn’t doubt of that. “Oh, if he gives us a bigger thing we won’t complain. Only, how long will it take him to get there? I want him to start right away.”
“Well, as I’m sure he’ll be deeply interested——”
“We may”—Mr. Bender took it straight up—“get news next week?”
Hugh addressed his reply to Lord Theign; it was already a little too much as if he and the American between them were snatching the case from that possessor’s hands. “The day I hear from Pappendick you shall have a full report. And,” he conscientiously added, “if I’m proved to have been unfortunately wrong——!”
His lordship easily pointed the moral. “You’ll have caused me some inconvenience.”
“Of course I shall,” the young man unreservedly agreed—“like a wanton meddling ass!” His candour, his freedom had decidedly a note of their own. “But my conviction, after those moments with your picture, was too strong for me not to speak—and, since you allow it, I face the danger and risk the test.”