"Mater!"--he was the softer in many ways--"I wish you wouldn't talk like that."
"Why not? Death's a fact. I've no patience with people who won't face facts. Life isn't a kinema show."
Coffee finished, they removed themselves to Julia's work-room--a square box of an apartment, book-lined, an Empire desk in its exact center under the illuminated top-light. Julia sat down at the desk; opened a drawer; and took out her check-book.
"Eight hundred a year," she said, writing. "That's two hundred a quarter. I'd better cross the check."
"Don't be absurd, mater." Ronnie frowned.
"But I want you to have it."
"What for?"
"Oh, clothes. You ought to dress better. Club subscriptions. Entertaining. Cigars. I don't know what men spend their money on. Women, mostly, I suppose."
Blotting the check, she would have given anything in the world to say: "Ronnie, darling, do take it. I can't slobber like other women. But I love you--you're everything I have in the world. Please, please Ronnie, don't refuse this. It's not money--it's just a token--a token of my love for you."
Actually, she said: "If your father hadn't been such a fool about money matters, he'd have left you his estate. He knew that I could always make all I wanted."