‘There is no doubt,’ she replied, ‘that you have had enough money to last you for all the rest of your life if it had been wisely invested.’
‘Do you mean to say that I have no investments?’ he said, half angrily. ‘Why, I have thousands of pounds invested in pictures, books, furniture, and china—my china alone is worth two thousand.’
‘Dear boy, I don’t doubt it,’ she answered soothingly, ‘but you know it doesn’t produce any interest. I like you to have pretty things about you, but you have precious little modesty in your mighty brain, and you sometimes indulge tastes which only a millionaire ought to possess.’
‘Well,’ he said, sighing, ‘I suppose there’s a moral at the end of the sermon. What is it, Sprats? You are a brick, of course—in your way there’s nobody like you, but when you are like this you make me think of mustard-plaisters.’
‘The moral is this,’ she answered: ‘come down from the clouds and cultivate a commercial mind for ten minutes. Find out exactly what you have in the way of income, and keep within it. Tell Haidee exactly how much she has to spend.’
‘You forget,’ he said, ‘that Haidee has two thousand pounds of her own. It’s a very small fortune, but it’s hers.’
‘Had, you mean, not has,’ replied Sprats. ‘Haidee must have spent her small fortune twice over, if not thrice over.’
‘It would be an unkind thing to be mean with her,’ said Lucian, with an air of wise reflection. ‘If Haidee had married Darlington she would have had unlimited wealth at her disposal; as she preferred to throw it all aside and marry me, I can’t find it in me to deny her anything. No, Sprats—poor little Haidee must have her simple pleasures even if I have to deny myself of my own.’
‘Oh, did you ever hear such utter rot!’ Sprats exclaimed. ‘Catch you denying yourself of anything! Dear boy, don’t be an ass—it’s bad form. And Haidee’s pleasures are not simple.’
‘They are simple in comparison with what they might have been if she had married Darlington,’ he said.