Laertes takes them through the mansion, rather than across the snow, chattering as he does about his recent studies on electroplating--he's been thinking of learning to make jewelry again, and electroplating might offer a way to add a softer metal's sheen to something made of a stronger metal. That conversation lasts exactly long enough for Laertes to close and latch the door to the greenhouse, at which point he leaves off the ruse and sinks down on a wrought-iron bench beneath the downturned fingers of a Buddha's hand tree. "So," he says. "What didst thou think?"