The thought for a moment crossed his mind that she might have been imitating one of them.
'Fine old screen, sir!' said Mr.Havill, in a long-drawn voice across the table when they were seated, pointing in the direction of the traceried oak division between the dining-hall and a vestibule at the end.

'As good a piece of fourteenth-century work as you shall see in this part of the country.' 'You mean fifteenth century, of course ?' said Somerset.
Havill was silent.

'You are one of the profession, perhaps ?' asked the latter, after a while.
'You mean that I am an architect ?' said Somerset.

'Yes.' 'Ah--one of my own honoured vocation.' Havill's face had been not unpleasant until this moment, when he smiled; whereupon there instantly gleamed over him a phase of meanness, remaining until the smile died away.
Havill continued, with slow watchfulness:-- 'What enormous sacrileges are committed by the builders every day, I observe! I was driving yesterday to Toneborough where I am erecting a town-hall, and passing through a village on my way I saw the workmen pulling down a chancel-wall in which they found imbedded a unique specimen of Perpendicular work--a capital from some old arcade--the mouldings wonderfully undercut.

They were smashing it up as filling-in for the new wall.' 'It must have been unique,' said Somerset, in the too-readily controversial tone of the educated young man who has yet to learn diplomacy.