gain first."

Mr. Bender glared as with the round full force of his pair of motor
lamps. "Well, if you're ready to talk about anything, I am. Good-bye,
Mr. Crimble."

"Good-bye, Mr. Bender." But Hugh, addressing their host while his
fellow-guest returned to the saloon, broke into the familiarity of
confidence. "As if you _could_ be ready to 'talk'!"

This produced on the part of the others present a mute exchange that
could only have denoted surprise at all the irrepressible young outsider
thus projected upon them took for granted. "I've an idea," said Lord
John to his friend, "that you're quite ready to talk with _me_."

Hugh then, with his appetite so richly quickened, could but rejoice.
"Lady Grace spoke to me of things in the library."

"You'll find it _that_ way"--Lord Theign gave the indication.

"Thanks," said Hugh elatedly, and hastened away.

Lord John, when he had gone, found relief in a quick comment. "Very
sharp, no doubt--but he wants taking down."

The master of Dedborough wouldn't have put it so crudely, but the young
expert did bring certain things home. "The people my daughters, in the
exercise of a wild freedom, do pick up----!"

"Well, don't you see that all you've got to do--on the question we're
dealing with--is to claim your very own wild freedom? Surely I'm right
in feeling you," Lord John further remarked, "to have jumped at once
to my idea that Bender is heaven-sent--and at what they call the
psychologic moment, don't they?--to point that moral. Why look anywhere
else for a sum of money that--smaller or greater--you can find with
perfect ease in that extraordinarily bulging pocket?"

Lord Theign, slowly pacing the hall again, threw up his hands. "Ah, with
'perfect ease' can scarcely be said!"

"Why not?--when he absolutely thrusts his dirty dollars down your
throat."

"Oh, I'm not talking of ease to _him_," Lord Theign returned--"I'm
talking of ease to myself. I shall have to make a sacrifice."

"Why not then--for so great a convenience--gallantly make it?"

"Ah, my dear chap, if you want me to sell my Sir Joshua----!"

But the horror in the words said enough, and Lord John felt its chill.
"I don't make a point of that--God forbid! But there are other things to
which the objection wouldn't apply."

"You see how it applies--in the case of the Moret-to--for _him_. A mere
Moretto," said Lord Theign, "is too cheap--for a Yankee 'on the spend.'"

"Then the Mantovano wouldn't be."