“I guess it was the whole lot,” put in Tembarom.
“Perhaps it was. They are all going to make everybody so rich that it is quite bewildering. He is very clever in business matters. And so kind. He even said that if I really wished it he might be able to invest my income for me and actually treble it in a year. But of course I told him that my income was your generous gift to me, and that it was far more than sufficient for my needs.”
Tembarom put down his coffee-cup so suddenly to look at her that she was fearful that she had appeared to do Captain Palliser some vague injustice.
“I am sure he meant to be most obliging, dear,” she explained. “I was really quite touched. He said most sympathetically and delicately that when women were unmarried, and unaccustomed to investment, sometimes a business man could be of use to them. He forgot”—affectionately—“that I had you.”
Tembarom regarded her with tender curiosity. She often opened up vistas for him as he himself opened them for the Duke of Stone.
“If you hadn't had me, would you have let him treble your income in a year?” he asked.
Her expression was that of a soft, woodland rabbit or a trusting spinster dove.
“Well, of course, if one were quite alone in the world and had only a small income, it would be nice to have it wonderfully added to in such a short time,” she answered. “But it was his friendly solicitude which touched me. I have not been accustomed to such interested delicacy on the part of—of gentlemen.” Her hesitance before the last word being the result of training, which had made her feel that it was a little bold for “ladies” to refer quite openly to “gentlemen.”
“You sometimes read in the newspapers,” said Tembarom, buttering his toast, “about ladies who are all alone in the world with a little income, but they're not often left alone with it long. It's like you said—you've got me; but if the time ever comes when you haven't got me just you make a dead-sure thing of it that you don't let any solicitous business gentleman treble your income in a year. If it's an income that comes to more than five cents, don't you hand it over to be made into fifteen. Five cents is a heap better—just plain five.”
“Temple!” gasped Miss Alicia. “You—you surely cannot mean that you do not think Captain Palliser is—sincere!”