“Show-places are show-places; the people who take them know it,” blurted out Mr. Morgan. “Ay, and what's more, they're proud of it.”
“They are, Tom,” said his wife, authoritatively.
“If you 'd give me one of them a present, for the living in it, I 'd not take it No, sir, I 'd not,” reiterated Morgan, with a fierce energy. “What is a man in such a case, sir, but a sort of appraiser, a kind of agent to show off his own furniture, telling you to remark that cornice, and not to forget that malachite chimney-piece?”
“Very civil of him, certainly,” said Layton, in his low, quiet voice, which at the same time seemed to quiver with a faint irony.
“No, sir, not civil, only boastful; mere purse-pride, nothing more.”
“Nothing, Tom,—absolutely nothing.”
“What's before the house this evening,—the debate looks animated?” said a fine bright-eyed boy of about fourteen, who lounged carelessly on Layton's shoulder as he came up.
“It was a little scheme to visit the Villa Caprini, my Lord,” said Mosely, not sorry to have the opportunity of addressing himself to a person of title.
“How jolly, eh, Alfred? What say you to the plan?” said the boy, merrily.
Layton answered something, but in a tone too low to be overheard.