"If Madam will simply tell me what sum she usually spends on the table," said Justine, "I will take the matter in hand."
Mrs. Salisbury hesitated. This was the very stronghold of her authority. It seemed terrible to her, indelicate, to admit a stranger.
"Well, it varies a little," she said restlessly. "I am not accustomed to spending a set sum." She addressed her daughter. "You see, I've been paying Nancy every week, dear," said she, "and the other laundry. And little things come up—"
"What sum would be customary, in a family this size?" Alexandra asked briskly of the graduate servant.
Justine was business-like.
"Seven dollars for two persons is the smallest sum we are allowed to handle," she said promptly. "After that each additional person calls for three dollars weekly in our minimum scale. Four or five dollars a week per person, not including the maid, is the usual allowance."
"Mercy! Would that be twenty dollars for table alone?" the mistress asked. "It is never that now, I think. Perhaps twice a week," she said, turning to Alexandra, "your father gives me five dollars at the breakfast table—"
"But, Mother, you telephone and charge at the market, and Lewis & Sons, too, don't you?" Sandy asked.
"Well, yes, that's true. Yes, I suppose it comes to fully twenty-five dollars a week, when you think of it. Yes, it probably comes to more. But it never seems so much, somehow. Well, suppose we say twenty-five—"
"Twenty-five, I'll tell Dad." Alexandra confirmed it briskly.