“I think you came over with a party of friends to see the villa,” said Heathcote, to relieve the awkward pause between them.
“Not friends, exactly; people of our hotel.”
Heathcote smiled faintly, and rejoined,—
“Some of our pleasantest acquaintances come of chance intimacies,—don't you think so?”
“Oh, for the matter of that, they 're jolly enough. There's a wonderful Londoner, and a rare Yankee, and there's an Irishman would make the fortune of the Haymarket.”
“You must own, Harry, they are all most kind and good-natured to you,” said Layton, in a tone of mild half-rebuke.
“Well, ain't I just as—what shall I call it?—polite and the like to them? Ay, Layton, frown away as much as you like, they're a rum lot.”
“It is young gentlemen of this age who nowadays are most severe on the manners and habits of those they chance upon in a journey, not at all aware that, as the world is all new to them, their criticism may have for its object things of every-day frequency.”
The youth looked somewhat vexed at this reproof, but said nothing.
“I have the same unlucky habit myself,” said Heathcote, good-humoredly. “I pronounce upon people with wonderfully little knowledge of them, and no great experience of the world neither; and—case in point—your American acquaintance is exactly one of those I feel the very strongest antipathy to. We have met at least a dozen times during the winter and autumn, and the very thought of finding him in a place would decide me to leave it.”