“I hope you are better now.”
“Oh, when I have had some champagne I shall be quite well. Now tell me something; talk to me.”
Helen was sitting thrown back on the little black satin sofa; she had crossed her legs, and her foot was set on a tiger's head. The ankle was too thick, the foot slightly fat, but stocking and shoe were perfect, and these drew Frank's eyes too attentively. Helen noticed this and was glad.
“So you like Maggie the best?”
“Oh, yes, I like her the best, Sally is too rough. How those girls do worry their father. He has to go up to town every day; he is in the City, and the girls give tennis parties, and drink his best wine. There was an awful row there the other day about the peaches; he had been going in for forcing, and was counting the days when they would be ripe. The young men ate them all.”
Helen laughed. “A sort of comic King Lear.”
“Just so, the girls will have large fortunes at their father's death. I have known them all my life. I used to spend my holidays with them when I was a small boy.”
“And you haven't seen them for a long time?”
“No, I was in Ireland two years, and then I went to Italy. This was the first time I saw them since they were really grown up.”
“And you say they are beautiful girls and will have large fortunes.”