“A lone man may happen to be saddled with a name of--well, of some repute--an expensive luxury.”
“And you think that a great name is worth spending a fortune upon, like a garden, merely to keep it up?”
“I do.”
“You think it worth all that?”
The dark, inscrutable eyes were raised deliberately to her face.
“Assuredly you must know that I do,” he said.
Mrs. Harrington laughed, and changed the subject. She knew this man’s face well, and her knowledge told her that he was at the end of his patience.
“So you saw Luke at Gibraltar?” she said, turning to Fitz.
“Yes, for a short time. I had never seen the Croonah before. She is a fine ship.”
“So I understand. So fine, indeed, that two friends of mine, the Ingham-Bakers, were induced to go to Malta in her. There is no limit now to feminine enterprise. Mothers are wonderful, and their daughters no less so. N’est-ce pas, Señor?”