looked from one to the other of the three men, scattered
a little by the sight of him, but attached eyes of recognition then
to Lord Theign's, whom he remained an instant longer communicatively
smiling at. After which, as you might have gathered, he all confidently
plunged, taking up the talk where the others had left it. "I should say,
Lord Theign, if you'll allow me, in regard to what you appear to have
been discussing, that it depends a good deal on just that question--of
what your Moretto, at any rate, may be presumed or proved to 'be.' Let
me thank you," he cheerfully went on, "for your kind leave to go over
your treasures."

The personage he so addressed was, as we know, nothing if not generally
affable; yet if that was just then apparent it was through a shade of
coolness for the slightly heated familiarity of so plain, or at least
so free, a young man in eye-glasses, now for the first time definitely
apprehended. "Oh, I've scarcely 'treasures'--but I've some things of
interest."

Hugh, however, entering the opulent circle, as it were, clearly took
account of no breath of a chill. "I think possible, my lord, that
you've a great treasure--if you've really so high a rarity as a splendid
Manto-vano."

"A 'Mantovano'?" You wouldn't have been sure that his lordship didn't
pronounce the word for the first time in his life.

"There have been supposed to be only _seven_ real examples about the
world; so that if by an extraordinary chance you find yourself the
possessor of a magnificent eighth----"

But Lord John had already broken in. "Why, there you _are_, Mr. Bender!"

"Oh, Mr. Bender, with whom I've made acquaintance," Hugh returned, "was
there as it began to work in me--"

"That your Moretto, Lord Theign"--Mr. Bender took their informant
up--"isn't, after all, a Moretto at all." And he continued amusedly to
Hugh: "It began to work in you, sir, like very strong drink!"

"Do I understand you to suggest," Lord Theign asked of the startling
young man, "that my precious picture isn't genuine?"

Well, Hugh knew exactly what he suggested. "As a picture, Lord Theign,
as a great portrait, one of the most genuine things in Europe. But it
strikes me as probable that from far back--for reasons!--there has
been a wrong attribution; that the work has been, in other words,
traditionally, obstinately miscalled. It has passed for a Moretto, and
at first I quite took it for one; but I suddenly, as I looked and looked
and sa