Lionel was annoyed by her reference to his church, but from experience he knew it was worse than useless to argue with Lady Jim. "I cannot help you," he said stiffly; "you know my small means."
"Bless the man, I don't mean you to put your hand in your pocket. I am quite aware that the clergy are better at asking than at giving."
"You have no right to say that," remonstrated Kaimes, warmly. "We help the poor and needy."
"In that case you have now a chance of practising what you preach."
Lady Jim negotiated Cockspur Street and felt her way along Trafalgar Square in the hope of hitting Whitehall. Only when the car was buzzing down that thoroughfare did Lionel speak.
"I am sitting in a most expensive machine," he said, indignantly, "swathed in a costly rug, and beside a woman with a fortune on her back in the way of clothes."
"Then you ought to be very happy," said Leah, calmly; "but I'll drop you at Lambeth soon, and then you can get back to the mud and rags, which you seem to prefer."
"My meaning is, that if you were poor you could not afford these luxuries."
"Nonsense. It is only poor people who can afford them. The rich make their money by self-denial, and wearing clothes which don't fit, in houses furnished with the riff-raff of auction-rooms. Jim and I have been brought up to better things."
"To better worldly things," corrected Lionel, bitterly.