"Settled?" Her face kindled. "Without your having to pay?"
He looked at her with a shrug. "Of course I've had to pay. Did you suppose Hubert's creditors would be put off with vanilla eclairs?"
"Oh, if THAT'S what you mean—if Hubert has only to wire you at any time to be sure of his affairs being settled—!"
She saw his lips narrow and a line come out between his eyes. "Wouldn't it be a happy thought to tell them to bring tea?" he suggested.
"In the library, then. It's so cold here—and the tapestries smell so of rain."
He paused a moment to scrutinize the long walls, on which the fabulous blues and pinks of the great Boucher series looked as livid as withered roses. "I suppose they ought to be taken down and aired," he said.
She thought: "In THIS air—much good it would do them!" But she had already repented her outbreak about Hubert, and she followed her husband into the library with the resolve not to let him see her annoyance. Compared with the long grey gallery the library, with its brown walls of books, looked warm and home-like, and Raymond seemed to feel the influence of the softer atmosphere. He turned to his wife and put his arm about her.
"I know it's been a trial to you, dearest; but this is the last time I shall have to pull the poor boy out."
In spite of herself she laughed incredulously: Hubert's "last times" were a household word.
But when tea had been brought, and they were alone over the fire, Raymond unfolded the amazing sequel. Hubert had found an heiress, Hubert was to be married, and henceforth the business of paying his debts (which might be counted on to recur as inevitably as the changes of the seasons) would devolve on his American bride—the charming Miss Looty Arlington, whom Raymond had remained over in Paris to meet.