Well, on the chance she let him have it. "To the value of your house."
He took it beautifully. "I like to hear you express it!"
"I can't express it!" She once more looked all round, and so much more gravely than she had yet done that she might have appeared in trouble. She tried but, with a sigh, broke down. "It's too inexpressible!"
This was a view of the case to which Mr. Prodmore, for his own reasons, was not prepared to assent. Expression and formulation were what he naturally most desired, and he had just encountered a fountain of these things that he couldn't prematurely suffer to fail him. "Do what you can for it, madam. It would bring it quite home."
Thus excited, she gave with sudden sombre clearness another try. "Well—the value's a fancy value!"
Mr. Prodmore, receiving it as more than he could have hoped, turned triumphant to his young friend. "Exactly what I told you!"
Mrs. Gracedew explained indeed as if Mr. Prodmore's triumph was not perhaps exactly what she had argued for. Still, the truth was too great. "When a thing's unique, it's unique!"
