Ashley found himself unable to tell the Head of the Firm what he wanted.
"I can get along," he said lamely. "I make a bit writing for the papers, and there's a brief once in a blue moon; and of course I've got a little; and this secretaryship helps for the time."
This beggarly catalogue of inadequate means increased Sir James' scorn and bewilderment.
"Are you above it?" he asked with sudden heat.
"Good God, sir, don't think me a snob as well as an ass," prayed Ashley.
"Then I don't know what you do want."
Matters seemed to have reached a standstill. But Sir James had a last shot in his locker.
"Go up and lunch in Kensington Palace Gardens," he said. "Talk it over with the ladies, talk it over with Alice."
Ashley wanted to refuse; on this day he had no desire to see Alice. But refusal seemed impossible.
"All right, Sir James, I will," he said.