Wellgood was ready—in spite of his contempt.
Chapter VI.
THE WORLDS OF MERITON.
The garden at Halton was a pleasant place on a fine evening, with a moon waxing, yet not obtrusively full, with billowing shrubberies, clear-cut walks, lawns spreading in a gentle drabness that would be bright green in to-morrow's sun—a place pleasant in its calm, its spaciousness and isolation. They all sat together in a ring for a while; smoke curled up; a servant brought glasses that clinked as they were set down with a cheery, yet not urgent, suggestion.
"I suppose you're right to go in for it," said Wellgood to Harry. "It's your obvious line." (He was referring to a public career.) "But, after all, it's casting pearls before swine."
"Swine!" The note of exclamation was large. "Our masters, Mr. Wellgood!"
"A decent allowance of bran, and a ring through their noses—that's the thing for them!"
"Has anybody got a copy—well, another copy of 'Coriolanus'?" Harry inquired in an affectation of eagerness.
"Casting pearls before swine is bad business, of course," said Belfield in his husky voice—he was really unwise to be out of doors at all; "but there are degrees of badness. If your pearls are indifferent as pearls, and your swine admirable as swine? And that's often the truth of it."
"My husband is sometimes perverse in his talk, my dear," said Mrs. Belfield, aside to Vivien, to whom she was being very kind. "You needn't notice what he says."