"Well, I was talking about it to Ursula Harbord—you know her, don't you?"
"I do," said Hughie, making a wry face.
"Very well, don't abuse her. She's the cleverest girl I know," said Joan warmly. "She is on the staff of 'The New Woman,' and can put a man in his place in about two minutes."
"So I discovered," said Hughie resignedly. "Popular type of girl. However, you were saying—?"
"I was asking Ursula," continued Joan, "about the cost of living in town, and so on, and we agreed to share a flat. She said I could get along on three hundred a-year."
Joan paused expectantly, and waited for an answer to her unspoken question.
"That," said Hughie, after hesitating a moment as if to work out a sum in mental arithmetic, "is just what I can give you."
A pair of Archdiaconal shoe-buckles, the glimmer of a lady's white evening wrap, and a glowing cigar-end were discernible in the half-light of the verandah outside the drawing-room window after dinner. Two Olympians, to whom human hearts were as an open book, were discussing mortal affairs.
"Is there no way of bringing it off?" inquired one voice.