“The rent will be one thousand a year.”
“God have mercy upon us!” Mrs. Gainsborough gasped. “A thousand a year? Why, the man must think that we’re the royal family broken out from Windsor Castle on the randan.”
“Shut up, you silly old thing,” said Sylvia. “He’s asking nothing at all. Francs, not pounds. Vous êtes trop gentil pour nous, Monsieur.”
“Alors, c’est entendu?”
“Mais oui.”
“Bon! Nous y irons ensemble tout de suite, n’est-ce pas?”
The apartment was really charming. From the windows one could see the priests with their breviaries muttering up and down the old garden of the Palais Royal; and, as in all gardens in the heart of a great city, many sorts of men and women were resting there in the sunlight. Ozanne invited them to dine with him that night and left them to unpack.
“Well, I’m bound to say we seem to have fallen on our feet right off,” Mrs. Gainsborough said. “I shall quite enjoy myself here; I can see that already.”
The acquaintance with Hector Ozanne ripened into friendship, and from friendship his passion for Lily became obvious, not that really it had ever been anything else, Sylvia thought; the question was whether it should be allowed to continue. Sylvia asked Ozanne his intentions. He declared his desperate affection, exclaimed against the iniquity of not being able to marry on account of a mother from whom he derived his entire income, stammered, and was silent.
“I suppose you’d like me and Mrs. Gainsborough to clear out of this?” Sylvia suggested.