Stafford's handsome face flushed.
"You've been very generous to me, sir," he said, in his brief way, but with a glance at his father which expressed more than the words.
Sir Stephen threw his head back and laughed.
"That's all right, Staff," he said. "It's been a pleasure to me. I just wanted to see you happy—'see you' is rather inappropriate, though, isn't it, considering how very little I have seen you? But there were reasons—We won't go into that. Where was I?"
"You were telling us your reasons for building this place, sir," Howard reminded him quietly.
Sir Stephen shot a glance at him, a cautious glance.
"Was I? By George! then I am more communicative than usual. My friends in the city and elsewhere would tell you that I never give any reasons. But what I was saying was this: that I've learnt that the world likes tinsel and glitter—just as the Sioux Indians are caught by glass beads and lengths of Turkey red calico. And I give the world what it wants. See?"
He laughed, a laugh which was as cynical as Howard's.
"The world is not so much an oyster which you've got to open with a sword, as the old proverb has it, but a wild beast. Yes, a wild beast: and you've got to fight him at first, fight him tooth and claw. When you've beaten him, ah! then you've got to feed him."
"You have beaten your wild beast, Sir Stephen," remarked Howard.