“Thirty-seven, forty-seven, fifty-two, and carry five,” she muttered, as Georgie stood in front of the fire, so that the entire new suit should be seen at once. “Wait a moment, Georgie—and seventeen and five’s twenty-three—no, twenty-two, and that’s put me out: I must begin again. That can’t be right. Help yourself, if de Vere has brought in tea, and if not ring—— Oh, I left out the four, and altogether it’s two thousand five hundred pounds.”
Georgie had thought at first that Daisy was merely doing some belated household accounts, but the moment she said “two thousand five hundred pounds” he guessed, and did not even go through the formality of asking what was two thousand five hundred pounds.
“I made it two thousand six hundred,” he said. “But we’re pretty well agreed.”
Naturally Daisy understood that he understood.
“Perhaps you reckoned the pearls as capital,” she said, “and added the interest.”
“No I didn’t,” he said. “How could I tell how much they were worth? I didn’t reckon them in at all.”
“Well, it’s a lot of money,” said Daisy. “Let’s have tea. What will she do with it?”
She seemed quite blind to the Oxford trousers, and Georgie wondered whether that was from mere feebleness of vision. Daisy was short-sighted, though she steadily refused to recognize that, and would never wear spectacles. In fact, Lucia had made an unkind little epigram about it at a time when there was a slight coolness between the two, and had said “Dear Daisy is too short-sighted to see how short-sighted she is.” Of course it was unkind, but very brilliant, and Georgie had read through “The Importance of Being Earnest” which Lucia had gone up to town to see, in the hopes of discovering it.... Or was Daisy’s unconsciousness of his trousers merely due to her preoccupation with Lucia’s probable income?... Or were the trousers, after all, not so daring as he had thought them?
He sat down with one leg thrown carelessly over the arm of his chair, so that Daisy could hardly fail to see it. Then he took a piece of tea-cake.
“Yes, do tell me what you think she will do with it?” he asked. “I’ve been puzzling over it too.”