Page:The Outcry (London, Methuen & Co., 1911).djvu/117

Rh ardently wound up, "that the wonderful subject of the Verona picture, a very great person clearly, is none other than the very great person of yours."

Lord Theign had listened with interest. "Mayn't he be that and yet from another hand?"

"It isn't another hand"—oh Hugh was quite positive. "It's the hand of the very same painter."

"How can you prove it's the same?"

"Only by the most intimate internal evidence, I admit—and evidence that of course has to be estimated."

"Then who," Lord Theign asked, "is to estimate it?"

"Well"—Hugh was all ready—"will you let Pappendick, one of the first authorities in Europe, a good friend of mine, in fact more or less my master, and who is generally to be found at Brussels? I happen to know he knows your picture—he once spoke to me of it; and he'll go and look again at the Verona one, he'll go and judge our issue, if I apply to him, in the light of certain new tips that I shall be able to give him."