"Tell me, then."
"I fear, uncle, that there is no salary attached to the situation."
"But there should be?"
"Yes, there should be."
"Mr. Seymour, wishing to engage a gentleman as part companion and part secretary, must have been prepared to enter into some kind of monetary arrangement. Whose fault is it that the arrangement was not made? I will reply for you again. It must have been Kingsley's fault. Not very practical, Nansie."
"I am afraid, uncle," said Nansie, speaking slowly, and as though she were about to commit an act of treason, "that Kingsley is not very practical."
"But how is a man to get along in the world," said Mr. Loveday, with a curious mixture of decision and helplessness, "who thus neglects his opportunities? I am speaking entirely in a spirit of kindness, Nansie."
"Yes, uncle, there's no occasion for you to remind me of that. But how can you blame Kingsley? He meets Mr. Seymour as one gentleman meets another. He is too delicate-minded to broach the subject of salary, and perhaps Mr. Seymour forgets it."
"No, child, Mr. Seymour does not forget it. He takes advantage of your husband, and the consequence is that he is using a man's services without paying for them. And the consequence, further, is that valuable time is being wasted and misspent. Two or three weeks ago you commenced to read to me something in one of your husband's letters, and you suddenly stopped and did not continue. It was about money. Am I wrong in supposing that what you were about to read was in reply to something you had written in a letter to your husband?"
"You are not wrong, uncle."