se (and plenty of 'em!) one damnably
does."

Lady Sandgate, by a turn of the hand, dropped oil from her golden cruse.
"Ah, you did _that_, in your own grand way, before you went abroad!"

"I don't speak of the matter, my dear man, in the light of its effect on
_you_," Lord John importantly explained--"but in the light of its effect
on Bender; who so consumedly wants the picture, if he _is_ to have it,
to be a Mantovano, but seems unable to get it taken at last for anything
but the fine old Moretto that of course it has always been."

Lord Theign, in growing disgust at the whole beastly complication,
betrayed more and more the odd pitch of the temper that had abruptly
restored him with such incalculable weight to the scene of action.
"Well, isn't a fine old Moretto good enough for him; confound him?"

It pulled up not a little Lord John, who yet made his point. "A fine old
Moretto, you know, was exactly what he declined at Dedborough--for its
comparative, strictly comparative, insignificance; and he only thought
of the picture when the wind began to rise for the enormous rarity--"

"That that mendacious young cad who has bamboozled Grace," Lord Theign
broke in, "tried to befool us, for his beggarly reasons, into claiming
for it?"

Lady Sandgate renewed her mild influence. "Ah, the knowing people
haven't had their last word--the possible Mantovano isn't exploded
_yet!_" Her noble friend, however, declined the offered spell. "I've
had enough of the knowing people--the knowing people are serpents! My
picture's to take or to leave--and it's what I've come back, if you
please, John, to say to your man to his face."

This declaration had a report as sharp and almost as multiplied as the
successive cracks of a discharged revolver; yet when the light smoke
cleared Lady Sand-gate at least was still left standing and smiling.
"Yes, why in mercy's name can't he choose _which?_--and why does he
write him, dreadful Breckenridge, such tiresome argumentative letters?"

Lord John took up her idea as with the air of something that had been
working in him rather vehemently, though under due caution too, as a
consequence of this exchange, during which he had apprehensively watched
his elder. "I don't think I quite see _how_, my dear Theign, the poor
chap's letter was so offensive."

In that case his dear Theign could tell him. "Because it was a tissue
of expressions that may pass current--over counters and in awful
newspapers--in