He looked at her somewhat pityingly.
‘How can I do that and attend to my work?’ he asked. ‘I could not possibly be pestered with things of that sort.’
‘Very well,’ said Sprats, ‘and Haidee doesn’t bother about them either. Therefore, no one bothers. I know your plan, Lucian—it’s charmingly simple. When Lord Simonstower left you that ten thousand pounds you paid it into a bank, didn’t you, and to it you afterwards added Haidee’s two thousand when you were married. Twice a year Mr. Robertson pays your royalties into your account, and the royalties from your tragedy go to swell it as well. That’s one side of the ledger. On the other side you and Haidee each have a cheque-book, and you draw cheques as you please and for what you please. That’s all so, isn’t it?’
‘Yes,’ answered Lucian, regarding her with amazement, ‘of course it is; but just think what a very simple arrangement it is.’
‘Admirably simple,’ Sprats replied, laughing, ‘so long as there is an inexhaustible fund to draw upon. But seriously, Lucian, haven’t you been drawing on your capital? Do you know, at this moment, what you are worth?—do you know how you stand?’
‘I don’t suppose that I do,’ he answered. ‘But why all this questioning? I know that Robertson pays a good deal into my account twice a year, and the royalties from the tragedy were big, you know.’
‘But still, Lucian, you’ve drawn off your capital,’ she urged. ‘You have spent just what you pleased ever since you left Oxford, and Haidee spends what she pleases. You must have spent a lot on your Italian tour last year, and you are continually running over to Paris. You keep up an expensive establishment; you indulge expensive tastes; you were born, my dear Lucian, with the instincts of an epicure in everything.’
‘And yet I am enjoying a supper in an obscure little café!’ he exclaimed laughingly. ‘There’s not much extravagance here.’
‘You may gratify epicurean tastes by a sudden whim to be Spartan-like,’ answered Sprats. ‘I say that you have the instincts of an epicure, and you have so far gratified them. You’ve never known what it was, Lucian, to be refused anything, have you? No: well, that naturally inclines you to the opinion that everything will always be made easy for you. Now supposing you lost your vogue as a poet—oh, there’s nothing impossible about it, my dear boy!—the public are as fickle as fortune herself—and supposing your next tragedy does not catch the popular taste—ah, and that’s not impossible either—what are you going to do? Because, Lucian, you must have dipped pretty heavily into your capital, and if you want some plain truths from your faithful Sprats, you spend a great deal more than you earn. Now give me another potato, and tell me plainly if you know how much your royalties amounted to last year and how much you and Haidee spent.’
‘I don’t know,’ answered Lucian. ‘I could tell by asking my bankers. Of course I have spent a good deal of money in travel, and in books, and in pictures, and in furnishing a house—could I have laid out Lord Simonstower’s legacy in better fashion? And I do earn large sums—I had a small fortune out of Domitia, you know.’