Titus Cheviot stared.
“This is reaction,” he said. “You stay where you are, sweetheart, and I’ll get you a drink.”
“No, it isn’t,” said Blanche. “I’m sane as sane. I’ve not been happy, you know—splashing about. That’s really why I splurged. I felt if I went all out perhaps I’d get there. I haven’t, of course. You never do. That way there’s nowhere to get. Then again—without an anchor I’m frightfully weak. I’m not a waster by nature, but put me among the wasters and I’ll waste away. I must have an anchor, Ti—an object in life. When you first knew me I had one. It was—to marry you. Then I lost that anchor . . . last June . . . in Eaton Square. . . . Since then . . . Ti, my dear, I’m going to open a shop.”
“Moses’ boots,” said Titus, sitting down on a chair. “What are you going to purvey?”
“Brains,” said Blanche. “My brains. And yours, if you will. It’ll cost us next to nothing except the rent. And we ought to make that on our heads. If we make no more, it doesn’t matter. I shall have something to do. But we must have a decent pitch.”
“Of course,” said Titus, “of course you’ve got me beat. I thought you sold brains by the pound.”
“Ideas, my darling, ideas. The Cheviots, Decorators. We’ve each got an excellent eye. You can do the halls and libraries, and I’ll do the drawing-rooms. We shall be frightfully chic and outrageously expensive. But we must have a decent pitch.”
Titus put a hand to his head.
“I don’t know about the chic,” he said dazedly, “but I shall be expensive all right. I’m sure of that. Almost costly. By the time they’ve paid me a tenner and then paid somebody else two tenners to rub it all out and do it again——”
“A tenner?” cried Blanche. “Why, you won’t look at a room under fifty guineas.”