“I really don’t see why you should be profane,” she remonstrated.
“It’s too absurd, your going out to work,” he insisted. “I had business connections in the old days with the house of Bultiwell, by which I profited. Why cannot I be allowed, out of the money I can’t ever dream of spending, to settle—”
“If you are going to be impertinent,” she interrupted coolly, “I shall get up and go out.”
Jacob groaned and cast about in his mind for a less intimate topic of conversation. The subject of theatre-going naturally presented itself. A momentary gleam of regret passed across her face as she answered his questions.
“Yes, I remember telling you how fond I always was of first nights,” she admitted. “Nowadays, naturally, we do not go to the theatre at all. My mother and I live very quietly.”
Jacob cleared his throat.
“If,” he suggested, “a box at the theatre could be accepted on the same terms as this luncheon—for your mother and you, I mean,” he went on hastily, “I am always having them given me. I’d keep out of the way. Or we might have a little dinner first. Your mother—”
“Absolutely impossible!” she interrupted ruthlessly. “I really feel quite ashamed enough of myself, as it is. I know that I have not the slightest right to accept your very delicious luncheon.”
“You could pay for anything in the world I could give you, with a single kind word,” he ventured.