Page:The Outcry (London, Methuen & Co., 1911).djvu/111

Rh 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 saw and saw, began to doubt, and now I know why I doubted."

Lord Theign had during this speech kept his eyes on the ground; but he raised them to Mr. Crimble's almost palpitating presence for the remark: "I'm bound to say that I hope you've some very good grounds!"

"I've three or four, Lord Theign; they seem to me of the best—as yet. They made me wonder and wonder—and then light splendidly broke."

His lordship didn't stint his attention. "Reflected, you mean, from other Mantovanos—that I don't know?"

"I mean from those I know myself," said Hugh; "and I mean from fine analogies with one in particular."

"Analogies that in all these years, these centuries, have so remarkably not been noticed?"

"Well," Hugh competently explained, "they're a sort of thing the very sense of, the value and meaning of, are a highly modern—in fact a quite recent growth."