‘About sixty, and not a white hair on his head.’
‘Then he may marry his cook?’
‘He will, sir.’
‘And is very likely to have a family.’
Mrs. Gisborne sniffed, and produced a pocket handkerchief from the early Victorian reticule. She applied the handkerchief to her eyes in silence. Merton observed her with pity. ‘We need the money so; there are so many of us,’ said the lady.
‘Do you think that Mr. Fulton is—passionately in love, with his domestic?’
‘He only loves his meals,’ said Mrs. Gisborne; ‘he does not want to marry her, but she has a hold over him through—his—’
‘Passions, not of the heart,’ said Merton hastily. He dreaded an anatomical reference.
‘He is afraid of losing her. He and his cronies give each other dinners, jealous of each other they are; and he actually pays the woman two hundred a year.’
‘And beer money?’ said Merton. He had somewhere read or heard of beer money as an item in domestic finance.