"Oh dear! Then what do you advise?" Daphne hung on Valentia's words, respecting her superior knowledge and experience.
"Oh, I advise enough, anyhow. It can't make you happy, but it can avoid certain troubles. Love in a cottage is only all right for the week-end when you have a nice house in London as well, and a season ticket or a motor, and electric light and things, and a telephone. Oh, by the way, our telephone here is eating its head off. We never use it. Go and ring up to the grocer, not to forget to send the things, will you, dear? He's got a telephone, too—the only tradesman in the village who has."
"What things isn't he to forget to send?"
"How should I know?—the usual things. He never does forget, but it looks well to remind him, and the 'phone needs exercise."
"All right. But before I go, Val—suppose you can't have the sort of love-in-a-cottage you mean, and there's no fear of your being so rich that it makes you miserable, what is the best thing to do?"
"Why, I suppose the old business in the old novels, a competence with the man of your heart, would do all right."
Daphne looked pleased.
"For six months, anyhow. Or a year or two, perhaps," Val added.
"Oh dear!" cried Daphne again, as she left the room.
"Poor pet," Val murmured to herself. "I hope I'm not teaching her to be cynical."