“They gratify your sense of the beautiful,” suggested I.
“You know, Mr. Barslow,” said she, “that it’s not our own sense of the beautiful, mainly, that we seek to gratify; and if the eyes for which they are intended are looking into ledgers and blind to everything except dollar-signs, what’s the use?”
“Go down to the seashore,” said I, “where the people congregate who have nothing to do.”
“Not I,” said she; “I’ll go into real estate, and become as blind as the rest!”
Jim paid no attention to my chaffing when I spoke of his conquest, as I called Antonia. In fact, he seemed annoyed, and for a long time said nothing.
“You can see how the Allen estate proposition stands,” said he, at last. “To let that sell for less than twenty thousand might cost us ten times that amount in lowering the prevailing standard of values. The old rule that we should buy in the cheapest market and sell in the dearest is suspended. Base is the slave who pays—less than the necessary and proper increase.”
CHAPTER X.
We Dedicate Lynhurst Park.