"I prefer to call it very enlightened and very intelligent—and the great thing is that it immensely 'marks,' as they say. It will have made a big public difference—from this day; though it's of course aimed not so much at persons as at conditions; which it calls upon us all somehow to tackle."
"Exactly"—she was full of the saving vision; "but as the conditions are directly embodied in persons——"
"Oh, of course it here and there bells the cat; which means that it bells three or four."
"Yes," she richly brooded—"Lady Lappington is a cat!"
"She will have been 'belled,' at any rate, with your father," Hugh amusedly went on, "to the certainty of a row; and a row can only be good for us—I mean for us in particular." Yet he had to bethink himself. "The case depends a good deal of course on how your father takes such a resounding rap."
"Oh, I know how he'll take it!"—her perception went all the way.
"In the very highest and properest spirit?"
"Well, you'll see." She was as brave as she was clear. "Or at least I shall!"
Struck with all this in her he renewed his homage. "You are, yes, splendid!"
"I even," she laughed, "surprise myself."
But he was already back at his calculations. "How early do the papers get to you?"
"At Dedborough? Oh, quite for breakfast—which isn't, however, very early."
"Then that's what has caused his wire to Bender."
"But how will such talk strike him?" the girl asked.
Hugh meanwhile, visibly, had not only followed his train of thought, he had let it lead him to certainty. "It will have moved Mr. Bender to absolute rapture."
"Rather," Lady Grace wondered, "than have put him off?"
"It will have put him prodigiously on! Mr. Bender—as he said to me at Dedborough of his noble host there," Hugh pursued—"is 'a very nice man'; but he's a product of the world of advertisment, and advertisement is all he sees and aims at. He lives in it as a saint in glory or a fish in water."
She took it from him as half doubting. "But mayn't advertisement, in so special a case, turn, on the whole, against him?"
Hugh shook a negative forefinger with an expression he might have caught from foreign comrades. "He rides the biggest whirlwind—he has got it saddled and bitted."
She faced the image, but cast about "Then where does our success come in?"
"In our making the beast, all the same, bolt with him and throw him." And Hugh further pointed the moral. "If in such proceedings all he knows is publicity the thing is to give him publicity, and it's only a question of giving him enough. By the time he has enough for himself, you see, he'll have too much for every one else—so that we shall 'up' in a body and slay him."
The girl's eyebrows, in her wondering face, rose to a question. "But if he has meanwhile got the picture?"
"We'll slay him before he gets it!" He revelled in the breadth of his view. "Our own policy must be to organise to that end the inevitable outcry. Organise Bender himself—organise him to scandal." Hugh had already even pity to spare for their victim. "He won't know it from a boom."
Though carried along, however, Lady Grace could still measure. "But that will be only if he wants and decides for the picture."
"We must make him then want and decide for it—decide, that is, for 'ours.' To save it we must work him up—he'll in that case want it so indecently much. Then we shall have to want it more!"
"Well," she anxiously felt it her duty to remind him, "you can take a horse to water——!"
"Oh, trust me to make him drink!"
There appeared a note in this that convinced her. "It's you, Mr. Crimble, who are 'splendid'!"
"Well, I shall be—with my jolly wire!" And all on that scent again, "May I come back to you from the club with Pappendick's news?" he asked.
"Why, rather, of course, come back!"
"Only not," he debated, "till your father has left."
Lady Grace considered too, but sharply decided. "Come when you have it. But tell me first," she added, "one thing." She hung fire a little while he waited, but she brought it out. "Was it you who got the 'Journal' to speak?"
"Ah, one scarcely 'gets' the 'Journal'!"
"Who then gave them their 'tip'?"
"About the Mantovano and its peril?" Well, he took a moment—but only not to say; in addition to which the butler had reappeared, entering from the lobby. "I'll tell you," he laughed, "when I come back!"
Gotch had his manner of announcement while the visitor was mounting the stairs. "Mr. Breckenridge Bender!"
"Ah then I go," said Lady Grace at once.
"I'll stay three minutes." Hugh turned with her, alertly, to the easier issue, signalling hope and cheer from that threshold as he watched her disappear; after which he faced about with as brave a smile and as ready for immediate action as if she had there within kissed her hand to him. Mr. Bender emerged at the same instant, Gotch withdrawing and closing the door behind him; and the former personage, recognising his young friend, threw up his hands for friendly pleasure.
III
"Ah, Mr. Crimble," he cordially inquired, "you've come with your great news?"
Hugh caught the allusion, it would have seemed, but after a moment. "News of the Moretto? No, Mr. Bender, I haven't news yet." But he added as with high candour for the visitor's motion of disappointment: "I think I warned you, you know, that it would take three or four weeks."
"Well, in my country," Mr. Bender returned with disgust, "it would take three or four minutes! Can't you make 'em step more lively?"
"I'm expecting, sir," said Hugh good-humouredly, "a report from hour to hour."
"Then will you let me have it right off?"
Hugh indulged in a pause; after which very frankly: "Ah, it's scarcely for you, Mr. Bender, that I'm acting!"
The great collector was but briefly checked. "Well, can't you just act for Art?"
"Oh, you're doing that yourself so powerfully," Hugh laughed, "that I think I had best leave it to you!"
His friend looked at him as some inspector on circuit might look at a new improvement. "Don't you want to go round acting with me?"
"Go 'on tour,' as it were? Oh, frankly, Mr. Bender," Hugh said, "if I had any weight——!"
"You'd add it to your end of the beam? Why, what have I done that you should go back on me—after working me up so down there? The worst I've done," Mr. Bender continued, "is to refuse that Moretto."
"Has it deplorably been offered you?" our young man cried, unmistakably and sincerely affected. After which he went on, as his fellow-visitor only eyed him hard, not, on second thoughts, giving the owner of the great work away: "Then why are you—as if you were a banished Romeo—so keen for news from Verona?" To this odd mixture of business and literature Mr. Bender made no reply, contenting himself with but a large vague blandness that wore in him somehow the mark of tested utility; so that Hugh put him another question: "Aren't you here, sir, on the chance of the Mantovano?"
"I'm here," he then imperturbably said, "because Lord Theign has wired me to meet him. Ain't you here for that yourself?"
Hugh betrayed for a moment his enjoyment of a "big" choice of answers. "Dear, no! I've but been in, by Lady Sandgate's leave, to see that grand Lawrence."
"Ah yes, she's very kind about it—one does go 'in.'" After which Mr. Bender had, even in the atmosphere of his danger, a throb of curiosity. "Is any one after that grand Lawrence?"
"Oh, I hope not," Hugh laughed, "unless you again dreadfully are: wonderful thing as it is and so just in its right place there."
"You call it," Mr. Bender impartially inquired, "a very wonderful thing?"