“Very much,” answered Bertha, who rarely used a strong expression, but whose eyes made the words emphatic.
Nigel whistled. “Oh, well, if it’s as bad as that!”
“It is. Quite.”
“Fancy! Lucky chap, old Rupert. Well, we must rush it through for them, I suppose. About the play—you want something serious, what price Shakespeare?”
“No price. Let’s go to the Russian Ballet.”
“Capital!” cried Nigel, moving quickly to the telephone in case she should change her mind; “and we’ll dine at the Carlton first. May I use your telephone?”
“Please!”
CHAPTER III
NIGEL
THE relation between Bertha and Nigel Hillier was a rather curious one. He had met her when she was eighteen. The attraction had been sudden, violent and mutual; and she was quite prepared to marry him against all opposition. There had been a good deal in her own family, because Nigel was what is euphemistically called without means, and she was the daughter of a fashionable London vicar who, though distinguished for his eloquence and extremely popular, successful and social, had a comparatively small income and a positively large family. In a short time Nigel—not Bertha—succumbed to the family opposition and the general prudent disapproval of worldly friends. He wrote and told Bertha that he was afraid after all they were right; persuaded to this view by having meanwhile met the only daughter of a millionaire when staying for a week-end at a country house. The girl had fallen in love with him, and was practically independent.