'Ah, my dear boy, I would be only too happy, but it's beyond my power. It did flash across my mind that I would write and ask father; but now that you've explained about the rabbits and things——'
'But there are no rabbits at Strathhaye!'
Laurette looked wonderingly at her brother, and then a sudden light seemed to dawn on her.
'Oh, Ted, don't tempt me. I'll be honest. It isn't what would keep Monico Lodge going; but being so nearly connected with the Weavelows, we are in the swim of everything. I wouldn't undertake to stay for the rest of the season—not unless Talbot's aunt was kind enough to die, and he got the few thousand pounds for which he is down in her will. But she was always a cantankerous old cat. I dare say she'll live for fifteen years to come. And lately she has taken quite a passion for the Burmese. She helped to scud two missionaries among the Chins there, but they were eaten or something. I don't know whether they do eat them in Burmah; but at any rate she's going to send more. How old ladies of the aristocracy of England should send missionaries anywhere while the young men of their own class are what they are—and the old ones, too, for the matter of that!—but I dare say they know how hopeless it would be; whereas people that you never see, you can believe all sorts of romantic things about them, their conversions and things; and then, I suppose, wild creatures, who haven't got a stick of furniture or a shirt to their backs, can afford to be really Christianized.'
Laurette had taken up a seam from a work-basket near, and was sewing away most industriously, while she rambled on in this artless fashion. Ted rose abruptly, and, without saying a word, went to his own room. He returned presently, and Laurette noticed, with a beating heart, that he had a cheque-book in his hand.
He sat down at a davenport in the corner of the room, and wrote for a few minutes rapidly, blotted the cheque, and stood near his sister.
'Don't talk in that cold-blooded way about the old woman, Larry. I think you may always reckon that the Australian side of your clan will do more for you than the "English-nobility" side. Keep this as much as you can in your own hands; and, if you want it, you can have as much again at the end of September.'
With that, Ted put down the cheque before Laurette, and hastened to leave the room. It was for fifteen hundred pounds. It seemed to Ted that Larry didn't look at the amount at all, when she rose with a little exclamation of joy, intercepted him, and threw her arms round him.
'There, Larry, don't slobber! I think you ought to say your prayers for that old woman. It sticks in my gizzard entirely to hear people talk in that way of old people—grudging them their bit of tucker and their own fireside. Why, even the niggers never knocked the old ones on the head unless there was a big famine.'
With this little homily, Ted went out; and Laurette, hardly able to believe her senses, stared at the cheque with beaming eyes. She had hardly dared to hope for such complete success.