“Yes,” returned Mrs. Nancy Newt, rapidly; “and now that we are to be so very nearly related, it is really high time that we became intimate.”
She looked, however, very far off from intimacy with the person she addressed.
“I am glad our children are so happy, Mrs. Newt,” said Gerald Bennet, in a tremulous voice, with his eyes glimmering.
“Yes. I am glad Gabriel’s prospects are so good,” returned Mrs. Newt. “I’ve no doubt he’ll be a very rich man very soon.”
When she had spoken, Boniface Newt, still drumming, turned his face and looked quietly at his wife. Nobody spoke. Gabriel only winced at what May’s mother had said; and they all looked at Boniface. The old man gazed fixedly at his wife as if he saw nobody else, and as if he were repeating the words to which the bony fingers beat time. He said, in a cold, dry voice, still beating time,
“Riches have wings! Riches have wings!”
“I’m sure, Boniface, I know that, if any body does,” said his wife, pettishly, and in a half-whimpering voice. “I think we’ve all learned that.”
“Riches have wings! Riches have wings!” he said, beating with the bony fingers.
“Really, Boniface,” said his wife, with an air of offended propriety, “I see no occasion for such pointed allusions to our misfortunes. It is certainly in very bad taste.”
“Riches have wings! Riches have wings!” persisted her husband, still gazing at her, and still beating time with the white bony fingers.