Mildred suppressed a smile. She had annoyed him sufficiently, there was no reason why she should press this interview towards a quarrel. Harold paused a moment and then said:
'I hear from our solicitors that you have drawn five thousand pounds out of first-class mortgages. Now, this is a large sum of money. How do you intend to re-invest it? I don't see how you could get better interest than you have been getting unless you accept doubtful security. I hope that neither this paper La Voix du Peuple or Panama has tempted you.'
'It is very kind of you, Harold, to come to Paris to inquire into this matter. You won't think that I am ungrateful, will you?'
'No.'
'Then I would sooner say nothing about this money…. I have re- invested it, and I think well invested it. I am satisfied, it is my own money. I am of age and quite capable of judging.'
'You know a great deal more than I do, Mildred, about art and literature and all that kind of thing, but I have had business experience that you have not, and I feel it my duty to tell you if you have invested your money in La Voix du Peuple that I can only look upon it as lost.'
'Come, Harold. Let us admit, for the sake of argument, that I have invested the whole or part of my money in this paper.'
'Then you have done so. If you hadn't, you would not feel inclined to discuss hypothetical investments.'
'Why not? For you impugn the integrity of my dearest friends. The circulation of the paper is going up steadily. When we reach sixty thousand I shall have invested my money, supposing I have put it into the paper at twenty per cent., and will then receive not 250 pounds but 1000 pounds a year. You will admit there is a difference.'
'I should think there was. I wish I could get twenty per cent, for my money. But I thought that getting a big interest for money was against your principles. I thought that the Socialists said that interest was "unpaid labour." Isn't that the expression you use?'