She said:
"People have been saying things against you? To him? Perhaps because there's been delay in settling the estate."
He said:
"Oh, no! The other way round, in fact!"
"Then they have been saying," she exclaimed, "things against . . . against me. And him!"
He exclaimed in anguish:
"Oh, but I ask you to believe . . . I beg you to believe that I believe . . . you! Miss Wannop!" He added grotesquely: "As pure as dew that lies within Aurora's sun-tipped . . ." His eyes stuck out like those of a suffocating fish. He said: "I beg you not on that account to hand the giddy mitten to . . ." He writhed in his tight double collar. "His wife!" he said . . . "She's no good to . . . for him! . . . She's soppily in love with him. But no good . . ." He very nearly sobbed. "You're the only . . ." he said, "I know . . ."
It came into her head that she was losing too much time in this Salle des Pas Perdus! She would have to take the train home! Fivepence! But what did it matter. Her mother had five hundred a year. . . . Two hundred and forty times five. . . .
Mark said brightly:
"If now we bought your mother an annuity of five hundred. . . . You say that's ample to give Christopher his chop. . . . And settled on her three . . . four . . . I like to be exact . . . hundred a year. . . . The capital of it: with remainder to you . . ." His interrogative face beamed.