“A pupil of Guido's, a certain Simone Affretti, who afterwards made the designs for the Twelve Apostles in the window of the chapter-room at Sienna,” read out Mr. O'Shea.
“Who can vouch for one word of all that, sir?” burst in Mr. Morgan, with a choleric warmth. “Who is to tell me, sir, that you did n't write that, or Peter Noakes, or John Murray himself, if there be such a man.”
“I can vouch for the last,” said a pale, gentle-looking young fellow, who was arranging the flies in a fishing-book under a tree at a little distance. “If it will relieve you from any embarrassments on the score of belief, I can assist you so far.”
If there was a faint irony in this speech, the mild look of the speaker and his softened accents made it seem of the very faintest, and so even the bluff Mr. Morgan himself appeared to acknowledge.
“As you say so, Mr. Layton, I will consent to suppose there is such a man; not that the fact, in the slightest degree, touches my original proposition.”
“Certainly not, Tom,” chimed in Mrs. Morgan, in a thick voice, like one drowning.
“But if you doubt Guido, you may doubt Raphael, Titian, Michael Angelo,” burst in Mrs. Morris, with a holy terror in her voice.
“Well, ma'am, I'm capable of all that—and worse.”
What that “worse” was there is no saying, though possibly Mr. Mosely was trying to guess at it in the whisper he ventured to Mrs. Morris, and which made that lady smile incredulously.
“I now, sir, rise to put the original motion,” said O'Shea, assuming that parliamentary tone which scandal pretended he displayed everywhere but in the House; “is it the opinion of this committee that we should all go and visit the Villa Caprini?”