“How are the tenants getting on?” asked Lady Paton, taking from the table a soft mass of white wool, and beginning to knit. She was one of those women whose hands are always uselessly and prettily busy.
“Mary and I drove past the cottages yesterday—I wish you had come, dear—you would have liked to see them. So pretty they are, among their orchards, with such beautiful gardens full of flowers.”
“Yes, don’t they look well?” said Perior, much pleased. “I am trying to get the people to devote themselves to fruit and flower growing. It pays well.”
“And do the cottages themselves pay?” Camelia inquired mischievously. “I hear that, asking the ridiculous rents you do, you need never expect to make the smallest profit—or even get back the capital expended.”
“Thank Heaven the money-making epoch of my life is over,” said Perior, folding his arms and looking at her rather defiantly.
“But what blasphemy against political economy! Cottages that don’t pay! It’s very immoral, Alceste. It is feminine. You are pauperizing your tenants.”
“I don’t at all disbelieve that a little infusion of femininity into political economy would be a very good thing. Besides, the cottages will pay in the end.”
“The rents are lower than the lowest in the village. Lord Haversham was telling me about it yesterday.”
“Oh, Haversham!” laughed Perior.
“He was very plaintive. Said that times were hard enough for landlords as it was, without your charitable visionaries and your socialistic theories.”