'What does Gallio care as long as the price is a good one?'
'You can't tell about Gallio; he has some charming prejudices. Besides—I don't understand the ins and outs of it—Bertie's consent has to be obtained. But he is offered two hundred thousand for a barrack he never lives in, and some acres of land which nobody will farm. He has telegraphed to Bertie about it to-day.'
'Well, I suppose it's no use being old-fashioned,' said Judy; 'but I think it's horrible to sell what has been yours so long. Probably the buyer is some awful South African Jew.'
'Very likely. But it's nothing new. Money has always possessed its own buying power—it always will. Only there's such a devil of a lot of it now in certain hands that a poor man can't keep anything of his own. And the hands that own it are not English. But they want England. Anyhow, as you say, it is no use being old-fashioned; but it is an immense luxury. You are luxurious, Judy.'
'What do you mean?'
'Well, the greatest luxury of your life was refusing to ask Mrs. Palmer to your house. How you could afford it I don't know.'
'It was delicious,' said Judy with great appreciation.
'Sybil was so sensible about it. She took just your view; she said she couldn't afford it herself, but that I was my own mistress. I wonder—I really wonder—why I find that class of person so intolerable.'
'Because you are old-fashioned; because you do not believe what is undoubtedly true—that wealth will get you anything——'
'Anything material it certainly will get you.'