Alone with her daughter, Lady Selina, so to speak, uncorked herself. Suppressed feeling bubbled forth in sparkling ebullition. Cicely secretly felt rather flattered. As a rule, her mother withheld confidence concerned with money. Cicely, for example, had no idea of what the family income might be. It seemed to be adequate without pinching. She had been promised a season in London; she was given plenty of frocks; her hunter had cost a hundred and fifty pounds; Brian never complained of his allowance. But, unlike her mother, Cicely had learnt at school elementary business principles. She knew girls of her own age who paid cash for their clothes, and passed anxious hours over the problems of adjusting means and ends. She had discovered that it was bad business to buy cheap shoes and underclothing. And debt was a synonym for misery and humiliation.
Accordingly, she agreed with her mother that Mr. Grimshaw’s price for a clean bill of health was preposterous.
“I like the young man, my dear; I am glad to entertain him but not his ideas. It’s so easy to be lavish with other people’s money. Thousands of pounds——!”
She repeated this intermittently, as if repetition might exorcise an unholy suggestion.
“What does Mr. Grimshaw want to do?” asked the girl.
“Heaven knows! A system of drainage, waterworks, the rebuilding of cottages.”
“What Lord Wilverley has done.”
“A very rich man, child. And the best of good fellows—a very sincere friend of yours, by the way.”
“Is he?”
Then meeting the maternal eye, the girl blushed a little, much to Lady Selina’s satisfaction. Wisely she abandoned further soundings. Arthur Wilverley could be trusted to do his own courting. So her thought sped back to Grimshaw. Already she had adopted a policy. Grimshaw had to be reckoned with. To treat him coldly, to keep him at a distance, simply meant a disturbance of the peace. If she were really “nice” to him, he would be disarmed. In small things he should have a free hand. Ultimately he would work with her, along her lines, without friction. So she said lightly: