The banker found an opening.
"I made a place for him—didn't I, now?—as soon as he was released from the navy. He ought to be able to help you."
"He does help, sir, as far as a young fellow can on eighteen a week with his own expenses to take care of. But I've two little girls still at school, and another, my eldest—"
A hint of embarrassment emphasized the banker's words as he began moving forward to show his visitor to the door.
"I understand that she's engaged as an artist's model. That, too, ought to bring you in something."
"I suppose Mr. Robert told you that, sir."
This was inadvertent on Follett's part, and a mistake. Any other distinguished man would have stiffened at the use of the name of a member of his family in a connection like the present one. Bradley Collingham was admirably temperate in saying:
"I don't talk of such matters with my son. I merely understood that your eldest girl was earning something—"
"She poses six hours a week for Mr. Hubert Wray, at a dollar an hour."
"She could probably get more engagements. I hear—I forget who told me—that she's the type these artist people like to put into their pictures."