Lucia held up her finger.
“Now, Georgie, don’t be unkind,” she said. “Let us say, ‘Poor Daisy,’ and leave it there. That’s all. Any other news?”
Georgie retailed the monstrous demand of Lady Ambermere.
“And, as Robert says, it’s so hard to know what to offer her,” he concluded.
Lucia gave the gayest of laughs.
“Georgie, what would poor Riseholme do without me?” she said. “I seem to be made to pull you all out of difficulties. That mismanaged golf-club-Pug, and now there’s this. Well, shall I be kind and help you once more?”
She turned over the leaves of her paper.
“Ah, that’s it,” she said. “Listen, Georgie. Sale at Pemberton’s auction-rooms in Knightsbridge yesterday. Various items. Autograph of Crippen the murderer. Dear me, what horrid minds people have! Mother-of-pearl brooch belonging to the wife of the poet Mr. Robert Montgomery; a pair of razors belonging to Carlyle, all odds and ends of trumpery, you see.... Ah yes, here it is. Pair of riding gaiters, in good condition, belonging to His Majesty King George the Fourth. That seems a sort of guide, doesn’t it, to the value of Queen Charlotte’s mittens. And what do you think they fetched? A terrific sum, Georgie; fifty pounds is nowhere near it. They fetched ten shillings and sixpence.”
“No!” said Georgie. “And Lady Ambermere asked fifty pounds!”
Lucia laughed again.