She coloured deeper than ever.
"I should never maintain my son on Morris's money," she said proudly.
"But, Sophy!... Oh, dog my buttons!..." groaned the harried man. "You've got to live...."
"You forget what you saved for me, Joe ... and my thousand a year."
"Saved! About twenty thousand. How will you eat and clothe yourself and the boy and educate him on the income of such a sum? I'm not talking high sentiment; I'm talking hard facts," wound up the Judge, much excited.
Charlotte sat motionless, looking at them. Sophy's eyes had gone black.
"I'll ... I'll ... sing for my living and Bobby's first," she said.
"Pooh!" said the Judge.
He was quite reckless. He, like Charlotte, sympathised too much in one way with this quixotic attitude of hers not to feel called on to remonstrate vigorously in another. He kept telling himself that Sophy was being hifalutin in addition to being rash. He must save her from hifalutiness at least.
"Pooh!" he said again hardily. "As Chartie said, let's talk sense. What about Bobby's education?... Eton—Oxford ... this tutor who's coming in a day or two? Do you think you're going to get divorced and established at the Metropolitan in time to pay for all that?"