The same phrase was repeated, and by many people, when Rita and Richard Lambourne came home again, three years later. The great rubber slump had come, and Richard had lost his job. He said that he hoped to find something to do in England.
“Professional men of all classes are hoping exactly the same thing at the present moment, all over the country,” said Sir Charles Clyde.
The Lambournes stayed with the Clydes for a little while, then they and their baby and their nurse moved into a tiny house on the outskirts of a large neighbouring town, and then it was that such a number of people took to making use of the apt descriptive phrase first employed when Rita married.
Many of them had known her in her girlhood, the spoilt and favoured child of Lady Clyde, at home in her stepfather’s house.
They could fully appreciate the contrast with her present position.
Richard could not find any work, although he answered advertisements and wrote to influential friends. He was not a strong man, and very soon showed signs of great discouragement and anxiety.
Rita, on the contrary, was always cheerful, and discussed the situation very frankly, laughing merrily at her own struggle with unaccustomed privations.
“It’s so lucky I’ve got a little money that my own father left me. By managing very, very carefully, we’re living on that. Poor Richard hadn’t a penny beyond his salary, and now of course that’s all gone—poor darling!”
She was drolly confidential with her numerous friends.
“It’s so funny to have to think before I take a second helping of pudding, even, and yet I suppose I really ought to. But I don’t think I’ve got a very large appetite, have I, Richard?”