"Yessir." She was fumbling nervously at her gloves, half drawing them off.
"Now all this money will last forever. For you invest it—if only at three per cent.—never mind what that is—and then you get fifteen thousand a year—fifteen thousand golden sovereigns to spend every—"
"Please, sir, I must go now. Rosie!"
"Oh, but you can't go yet. I have lots more to tell you."
"Yessir; but can't you ring for me again?"
In the gravity of the crisis, the remark tickled him; he laughed with a strange ring in his laughter.
"All right; run away, you sly little puss."
He smiled on as he poured out his tea; finding a relief in prolonging his sense of the humour of the suggestion, but his heart was heavy, and his brain a-whirl. He did not ring again till he had finished tea.
She came in, and took her gloves out of her pocket.
"No! no!" he cried, strangely exasperated. "An end to this farce! Put them away. You don't need gloves any more."