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Mrs. Gracedew was superbly definite. “Two. The party up and the party down.” She pointed to the escutcheons. “Observe in the centre compartment the family arms.” Before Chivers knew it, she had crossed to the black old portrait. “And observe the family legs!” She flew from pavement to roof. “Observe the suit of armour worn at Tewkesbury—observe the tattered banner carried at Blenheim.” They bobbed wherever she pointed, but saw her alone—Clement Yule especially, who never took his eyes from her. All her own, for a moment, frankly went back to him. “Observe, above all, that you’re in one of the most interesting old houses in England; for which the ages have been tender and the generations wise: letting it change so slowly that there’s always more left than taken—living their lives in it, but letting it shape their lives!”
Prodmore took it up at once. “A most striking and appropriate tribute to a real historical monument! You do, madam, bring the whole thing out!”
The visitor with the green tie, with a loud renewal of boldness: “Doesn’t she indeed, Jane, bring it out?”
Mrs. Gracedew laughed. “But who in the world wants to keep it in? It isn’t a secret—it isn’t a strange cat or a political party!” She soared to the roof. “Just look at those lovely lines! Just look at the tone of that glass, and the gilding of that leather, and the cutting of that oak, and the dear old flags of the very floor. To look, in this place, is to love!”
A voice from the party took it up with a guffaw, accompanied by a pinch to one of the ladies. “I say—to love!”
One of the ladies properly replied. “It depends on who you look at!”
Prodmore made his profit. “Do you hear that, Captain? You must look at the right person!”
Mrs. Gracedew faltered. “I don’t think Captain Yule cares. He doesn’t do justice—”
“Madam?”
“To the value of your house.”
“I like to hear you express it!”
“I can’t express it!” She looked all round, more gravely, and tried but broke down. “It’s too inexpressible!”
Prodmore was not prepared to assent. “Do what you can for it, madam. It would bring it quite home.”
She gave another try. “Well—the value’s a fancy value!”
Prodmore turned triumphant. “Exactly what I told you!”
“When a thing’s unique, it’s unique!”
“It’s unique!” Prodmore cried. The gentleman in the green tie caught it. “It’s unique!” They all vociferously did.
“It’s worth anything you like,” Mrs. Gracedew insisted.
“Anything you like!” Prodmore reverberated.
“Twenty thousand now?” a very young gentleman with a coaxing voice inquired, blushing.
“I wouldn’t look at twenty thousand!” Mrs. Gracedew replied.
“She wouldn’t look at twenty thousand!” Prodmore announced to the Captain.
“Thirty, then, as it stands?”
“It would be giving it away!”
“It would be giving it away!” Prodmore cried.
“You’d hold out for forty—?”
“Fifty thousand, Captain Yule, is what I think I should propose.”
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