"Doesn't one give up the key of the gates by marrying?"
"My dear Kate, read your Bluebeard again!"
Mrs. Raymore relapsed into the silence that was almost habitual to her, but it passed through her mind that the conversation had soon turned from Sibylla to Grantley himself, or at least had dealt with Sibylla purely in her bearing on Grantley; it had not increased her knowledge of Mrs. Imason as an independent individual.
"Well, with business what it is," said Fanshaw in his loud voice—a voice that had a way of stopping other people's voices—"we must cut it down somewhere."
"Oh, you're as rich as Crœsus, Fanshaw!" objected young Blake.
"I'm losing money every day! Christine and I were discussing it as we drove here."
"I like your idea of discussion, John," remarked Christine in her delicate tones, generally touched with sarcasm. "I couldn't open my lips."
"He closured you, and then threw out your Budget?" asked Grantley.
"He almost stripped my gown from my back, and made an absolute clutch at my diamonds."
"I put forward the reasonable view," Fanshaw insisted rather heatedly. "What I said was, begin with superfluities——"