Their only son,
Georgie, was already seated. George the younger showed an astounding
disregard for the decencies of life, and a frankly gluttonous absorption
in food which amounted to cynicism. Evidently he cared for nothing but
the satisfaction of bodily desires. Yet he was twenty-two months old,
and occupied a commanding situation in a high chair! His father and
mother were aged thirty-two and twenty-eight respectively. They both had
pale, intellectual faces; they were dressed with elegance, and their
gestures were the gestures of people accustomed to be waited upon and to
consider luxuries as necessaries. There was silver upon the table, and
the room, though small and somewhat disordered, had in it beautiful
things which had cost money. Through a doorway half-screened by a
portiere could be seen a large studio peopled with heroic statuary,
plaster casts, and lumps of clay veiled in wet cloths. And on the other
side of the great window of the studio green trees waved their foliage.
The trees were in Regent's Park. Another detail to show that the Peels
had not precisely failed in life: the time was then ten-thirty o'clock!
Millions of persons in London had already been at hard work for hours.
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