‘My dear, it’s flying in the face of Providence to neglect such a chance,’ she said, ‘and if she’d told me to wait at the bottle entrance of the Elephant and Castle I should have gone.’
He shuffled about the room a little.
‘Don’t like your being whistled to by the wife of the manufacturer of hardware, just for six months’ rent,’ he said.
She laughed.
‘My dear Toby, it isn’t only six months’ rent that’s at stake,’ she said. ‘I’m not going to be landlady only, I expect, but godmother.’
‘Godmother?’
‘Yes, dear, and you godfather to Mr. Hardware, if he is here. But you needn’t buy any presents. Good American godchildren give the presents themselves.’
Toby had some vague sense of her position, she only the necessity of his poverty.
‘You mean you’re going to trot them round?’ he asked.
‘Yes, if possible. I think her message means that. Why else should she want to see me, or take the house for August and September? It’s a bribe, a hint, a signal.’