“One’s a Miss Wallace. She’s engaged to Willie Prime.”
“To Willie? Fancy!”
“H’m! I think,” remarked Mr. Vansittart, “that, from the point of view of a reduction of rent, these lodgers are a delusion. Of course she stays with Prime if she’s going to many his son.”
“Fancy Willie!” reiterated Lady Merceron. “Surely he can’t afford to marry? He’s in a bank, you know, Vansittart, and he only gets a hundred and twenty pounds a year.”
“One blessing of the country is that everybody knows his neighbor’s income,” observed Mr. Vansittart.
“Perhaps the lady has money,” suggested Mrs. Marland. “But, Mr. Merceron, who’s the other lady?”
“A friend of Miss Wallace’s, I believe. I don’t know her name.”
“Oh, they’re merely friends of Prime’s?” Mr. Vansittart concluded. “If that’s all he bases his claim for a reduction on—-”
“Hang it! He might as well have it,” interrupted Charlie. “He talks to me about it for half an hour every time we meet.”
“But, my dear Charlie, you have more time than money to waste—at least, so it seems.”