"Is that all?" he says. "Are you really wasting a blush on such a slight request? What an odd little girl you are! I believe you are the only wife alive who would feel modest about asking such a question. How much do you want darling? You will require some other things too, I suppose. Shall I give you a hundred pounds, to see how far it will go? Will that be enough?"
"Oh, 'Duke! a great deal too much."
"Not a bit too much. I don't know what dresses cost, but I have always heard a considerable sum. And now, as we are on the subject of money, Phyllis; what would you prefer—an allowance, or money whenever you want it, or what?"
"If you would pay my bills, Marmaduke, I would like it best." I have never felt so thoroughly married as at this moment, when I know myself to be dependent on him for every shilling I may spend.
"Very well. Whatever you like. Any time you tire of this arrangement you can say so. But at all events you will require some pocket-money," rising from the table and going over to a small safe in the wall.
"No, thank you, 'Duke; I have some."
"How much?"
"Enough, thank you."
"Nonsense, Phyllis!" almost angrily. "How absurd you are! One would think I was not your husband. I wish you would try to remember you have a perfect right to everything I possess. Come here directly and take this," holding out to me a roll of notes and a handful of gold. "Promise me," he says, "when you want more you will come to me for it. It would make me positively wretched if I thought you were without money to buy whatever you fancy."
"But I never had fifty—I never had ten pounds in my life," I say, half amused. "I won't know what to do with it."