This conflicted with James's common-sense. "If I may advise you," he told her, "take what you can get. You know that we are giving Laura £1000."
Rosemary considered a moment. "After all, Tony will soon be earning more," she conceded, "and we could always do good with it."
"Tip our waitresses with it," suggested James.
Rosemary looked up. There had been something brutal in her father's voice. She had long ago decided that he could be a brute if he liked, though he seldom was.
"No," she said, and waited for him to say more.
James could not easily resist a quiet concentrated attitude of attention. "That's how your mother wants to spend her income," he went on, "as I daresay you know."
Rosemary flushed with interest. "Does she?—I didn't know—how perfectly splendid of her! Do you think she really will?"
James grunted, evading the question. "Oh, then it wasn't you who suggested it?"
His daughter shook her head. "No, mother never—hardly ever—talks to me about that sort of thing. And it isn't what I should have suggested if she had. I should have advised her to give it to the Women's Trade Union League, and tell them to spend it on forming a waitresses' union. Then she would benefit all the girls in the trade. I don't think it's much good tinkering with a business here and a business there. But what is so splendid is that mother should want to give up the money, that she should have thought of it all by herself!"
"I'm not going to discuss your mother with you," said James, whose memory, in discussions, was short. "And I'm not going to give you a thousand a year to spend in fomenting discontent among my employees, if that's what you mean by doing good with it. But if you'll send Hastings to me, I'll discuss the matter with him. It seems to me, my dear daughter, that the sooner you're safely married the better."