"Why should I see her?" he asked. "She is a perfect stranger to me. She came up to me at a party, the other night, and asked me, as a great favour, to dine at her house and to tell her how to invest some money so that she could double it."

"I know," Letitia assented, with her mouth full of muffin. "She does that to all the financiers and expects them to give her tips just because she has dark eyes and asks them to a tête-à-tête dinner. I expect we are all as bad, though," she went on rather gloomily, "even if we are not quite so blatant. What on earth have you been doing to father? He swaggers about as though he were already a millionaire."

David smiled a little sadly as he looked out across the treetops.

"Your father has rather a sanguine temperament," he said.

"Well, don't encourage him to speculate, please," Letitia begged. "We couldn't afford to lose a single penny. As it is," she went on, "we are only able to come to Mandeleys because you've taken that ramshackle old barn close by and paid twice as much as it's worth. About the shooting, too! I almost laughed aloud when you mentioned it! Do you know, Mr. Thain, that we haven't reared a pheasant for years, and that we don't even feed the wild ones?"

"What about the partridges, though," he reminded her, "and the hares? I talked to a farmer when I was down there the other day, and he complained bitterly that there was only one vermin-killer on the whole estate and that the place was swarming with rabbits. I rather enjoy rabbit shooting."

"Oh, well, so long as you understand," Letitia replied, with a little shrug of the shoulders, "take the shoot, for goodness' sake, and pay dad as much as he chooses to ask for it. I've always noticed," she went on reflectively, "one extraordinary thing about people who haven't the faintest idea of business. They are always much cleverer than a real business man in asking ever so much more than a thing is worth. A person with a sense of proportion, you see, couldn't do it."

"One would imagine," he complained, "that you were trying to keep me away from Mandeleys."

"Don't, please, imagine such a thing," she begged earnestly. "If there is anything I hate, it's London--or rather hate the way we have to live here. You are entirely our salvation. If you desert us now, I shall be the most miserable person alive. Only, you see, I know what father is, and what you do you must do with your eyes open."

He was silent 

 Prev. P 60/218 next