“About up to my shoulder.”
“She’s little, then.”
“Well, I don’t know,” objected Anthony, surveying his own stalwart length of limb. “A girl doesn’t have to be a dwarf not to be on a level with me. I should say she must be somewhere near your height.”
“What a magnificent dresser!”
“Is she? She never irritates one with the fact.”
“Oh, but I can see. And she’s going to marry you. Tony, what can you give her?”
“A little box of a house, one maidservant, an occasional trip into town, four new frocks a year—moderate ones, you know, in keeping with her circumstances—and my name,” replied Anthony composedly.
“You won’t let her live in town, then?”
“Let her! Good heavens, what sort of a place could I give her in town on my salary? Now, in the very rural suburb I’ve picked out she can live in the greatest comfort, and we can have a real home—something I haven’t had since Dad died and the old home and the money and all the rest of it went.”
His face was grave now, and he was staring down into the water as if he saw there both what he had lost and what he hoped to gain.