"I gave Mrs. Butt a pound a wik," he observed.
"But think what a good manager Mrs. Butt was!" she said, with the sweetness of a saint.
He was accustomed to distributing satire, but not to receiving it. And, receiving this snowball full in the mouth, he did not quite know what to do with it; whether to pretend that he had received nothing, or to call a policeman. He ended by spluttering.
"It's easy enough to ask for money when you want it," he said.
"I hate asking for money," she said. "All women do."
"Then am I to be inquiring every morning whether you want money?" he questioned, sarcastically.
"Certainly, uncle," she answered. "How else are you to know?"
Difficult to credit that that girl had been an angel of light all the week, existing in a paradise which she had created for herself, and for him! And now, to defend an action utterly indefensible, she was employing a tone that might be compared to some fiendish instrumental device of a dentist.
But James Ollerenshaw did not wish his teeth stopped, nor yet extracted. He had excellent teeth. And, in common with all men who have never taken thirty consecutive repasts alone with the same woman, he knew how to treat women, how to handle them—the trout!
He stood up. He raised all his body. Helen raised only her eyebrows.