“One moment. I have a florin somewhere.”
“Don’t trouble about it,” Eileen hastened to reassure her. “You needn’t hunt for it. Let it stand.”
Mrs. Caistor Scorton continued her search and at last discovered the missing coin.
“I don’t like letting things stand over. Settle for cash, that’s always been my principle in bridge. I can’t be worried with remembering odd shillings from day to day.”
Eileen Cressage picked up her winnings gratefully. She was not disturbed by Mrs. Caistor Scorton’s manner. She was too overwhelmed by relief. Here was an absolute windfall which would go some distance towards solving the problem of her debts. Twenty-seven pounds! And she had given only half her attention to the game. If she had put her mind to it they might have won a good deal more. She had not even asked what stakes they were playing for; she had been too worried to think about that. A couple more nights like this and she would be able to pay off all her creditors.
“Sorry I shan’t be able to give you your revenge to-morrow, Douglas,” she heard Conway Westenhanger say, as he rose from the table. “I’ve got to run up to town for a couple of days. My patent-agent seems to have got on the track of an infringement of one of my affairs, and he wants to go into the business. That means Chancery Lane, Patent Office Library, and all the rest of it. Whew! It will be hot!”
Douglas’s good-natured face corrugated in a grin of commiseration; but already he was moving across the room to where Cynthia Pennard was sitting. Morchard watched his coming with a discontented eye.
Mrs. Brent, glad to be relieved from the American’s inquisition on local monuments, went across to Rollo Dangerfield’s chair and gazed out of the window.
“No, that storm won’t break to-night, I’m afraid. It’s moved further on. But it’s got on my nerves already. I wish it would break and get the thing over. This heat wave might pass, then.”
She drew back from the embrasure and bent over old Dangerfield.