"Take my advice and don't do it," said Edwin. "Until the house is let or sold it may as well be occupied by you as stand empty--better in fact, because you'll look after it."
"That's right enough, anyway," said Hilda, as if to imply that by a marvellous exception a man had for once in a while said something sensible.
"You needn't use all the house," Edwin proceeded. "You won't want all the servants."
"I wish you'd say a word to Johnnie," breathed Janet.
"I'll say a word to Johnnie, all right," Edwin answered loudly. "But it seems to me it's Tom that wants talking to. I can't imagine what he was doing to let your father in for that Palace Porcelain business. It beats me."
Janet quietly protested:
"I feel sure he thought it was all right."
"Oh, of course!" said Hilda, bitterly. "Of course! They always do think it's all right. And here's my husband just going into one of those big dangerous affairs, and he thinks it's all right, and nothing I can say will stop him from going into it. And he'll keep on thinking it's all right until it's all wrong and we're ruined, and perhaps me left a widow with George." Her lowered eyes blazed at the carpet.
Janet, troubled, glanced from one to the other, and then, with all the tremendous unconscious persuasive force of her victimhood and her mourning, murmured gently to Edwin:
"Oh! Don't run any risks! Don't run any risks!"