"How did you find him?" Arthur asked her.
"Oh, quite calm—and immersed in his account-books." She smiled. "Yes, he's up, in his chair, and a pile of them on the table at his elbow! He says that the first thing to do is to reduce his expenditure. He hopes now to be able to pay off his mortgage in four or five years. She was awfully extravagant, you know, and he hated mortgaging Hilsey."
"Do you think she knew he'd had to do it?"
"No, she didn't. He wouldn't let her know. He liked her to think him richer than he was, I think."
"Then he has no right to grumble at her extravagance."
"I never heard him do that—and he didn't do it this morning. All the same it worried him, and now he can save, oh, enormously, of course! The barouche and the pair of horses are to go, the first thing."
The barouche! It carried his mind back to the beginning, when its costly luxury framed for his eyes their earliest picture of Bernadette's dainty beauty.
"If he isn't going to keep it, he might send it after her. I would."
"Yes, you'd do a lot of foolish things if you were let. Luckily you're not!"
"Judith, I half believe he's glad!"