"I won't," was the firm response. "It's like pouring water into a sieve. I've given you and Jim at least five thousand pounds. Where is it, I ask--where?"
"We must pay our bills."
"You ought to, but you don't."
"Money will go."
"In ways it shouldn't go," snapped the old woman, feeling herself mistress of the situation. "Don't talk nonsense to me, Leah. You and that rascal are a couple of spendthrifts. The Duke, bless him, started you both with a good home and a good income, and now----"
"Now we're on the rocks, as Jim cleverly puts it," said Leah, who could not help seeing the humour of the dilemma. "You didn't think Jim was so original, did you, godmother?"
"Leah, you're impossible!"
"I'm sure I don't know why you should say that," remonstrated Lady Jim. "I must keep up my position."
"It's not as if you had been expensively brought up," went on Lady Canvey, unheeding. "Your father was a wasteful pauper, for he got precious little off that estate of his in Buckinghamshire."
"And what he did get went into his own pocket," said Lady Jim, supplementing the family history; "but as my mother was dead, and I was his only daughter, he might have treated me better."