“You can endow a perpetual diet squad. You can buy out the whole Life Extension Institute. If you would only stop to think of the advantages of having all the money you wanted to spend on anything you wanted, you’d—”
“Billy,” Nancy said solemnly, “I’ve been through all that. If I had thought I would have been a better person with a great deal of money at my disposal, I—I might have—”
“Married Dick,” Billy finished for her. “I forgot that interesting possibility. I suppose to a girl who has just turned down a cold five millions, this meager little proposition”—he flourished the crumpled document in his hand—“has no real allure. Lord! What a world this is. You’ll marry Dick yet. Them as has—gits. It never rains but it pours. To the victor belong the spoils, et cetera, et cetera—”
“Money simply does not interest me.”
“Dick interests you. I don’t know to what extent, but he interests you.”
“Don’t be sentimental, Billy. Just because you’re in love with Caroline, you can’t make all your other friends marry each other. Tell me what to do about this legacy. What is customary when you get a lump of money like that? I suppose I’ll have to begin to get rid of all this immediately.” There was more than a hint of tears in her voice, but she smiled at Billy bravely. “I’m so perfectly crazy about these—these cups and saucers, Billy. See the lovely way that rose is split to fit into the design. Oh, when do I come into possession, anyway?”
“You don’t come into possession right away, you know. You don’t inherit for a couple of years, under the Rhode Island law. The formalities will take—”
“Billy Boynton, do you mean to say that I won’t have to do a blessed thing about this money for two years?” Nancy shrieked.
“Why, no. It takes a certain amount of red tape to settle an estate, to probate a will, etc., and the law allows a period of time, varying in different states—”