He crushed her hands in both of his own, leaning toward her across the table. "Oh, my darling, if you only knew how easy it is—"
"No, it isn't easy. It can't be easy. I couldn't let you do it for me—"
"But what about him? You let—him!"
"Oh, but that's different."
"How is it different?"
"I don't know, Rupert; but it is. Or rather," she went on, rapidly, "I do know, but I can't explain. If you were an American you'd understand it."
"Oh, American—be blowed!" The accent was all tenderness, the protest all beseeching.
"I can't explain it," she hurried on, "because you don't understand us. It's one of the ways in which an Englishman never can understand us. But the truth is that money doesn't mean as much to us as it does to you. I know you think the contrary, but that's where you make your primary mistake. It's light come and light go with most of us, for the simple reason that money is outside our real life; whereas with you English it's the warp and woof of it."
"Oh, bosh, darling!"
"No, it isn't bosh. In your civilization it's as the blood; in ours it's only as the clothing. That's something like the difference. In accepting it from Peter Davenant—which is hard enough!—I take only what he can do without; whereas—"