"Mamma's temper is naturally not of the best just now, and I gather that the dissensions have been rather bad. Papa talks of allowing Aunt Emily a pound a week to live by herself, and really she seems to prefer it."
She added, underlined, that Cæsar was still "the right hand of McCullough." She had learnt to smile a little at Cæsar, and Kent winced as he came to that allusion to a mutual joke. And then there followed a dozen affectionate injunctions: he was not to be dull, "poor boy who had no watch and chain!" but to go somewhere every night; he was to hug baby for her, and to give and keep a score of kisses. She was "Always his loving wife." He read it under the paraffin lamp with his overcoat on, and wished that it hadn't arrived till the morning.
Mrs. Deane-Pitt's inquiry how The World and his Wife was going had had more significance than Kent's careless reply. The band of Paris Correspondents in the vicinity of the boulevard Magenta and elsewhere were already beginning to talk about Billy Beaufort, for, not only was he neglecting the first chance of a competence that had fallen his way for years—he was squandering the whole of a very handsome salary, and getting into difficulties, besides. The amount of energy which this man, when in his deepest waters, expended upon a search for opportunities was equalled only by the abysmal folly by which he ruined all that he obtained. He was one of the fools who devote their lives to disproving the adage that experience teaches them. The circulation of the paper was purely nominal, and the Baronet had constantly to be applied to for further funds; indeed, the only work in connection with the journal which Billy did now was to write euphemistic reports to the proprietor. The money did not supply the journal's deficiencies alone. Card debts had to be settled somehow; and an ephemeral attachment to a girl who tied herself in knots at the Nouveau Cirque was responsible for some embarrassment.
Hitherto, however, Beaufort had always spared the hundred and seventy-five francs at the end of the week to his assistant-editor. But on the Saturday after Cynthia's return he asked him casually if he would mind waiting for it a few days.
"Sorry if it puts you out at all," he said. "I can't help myself. You shall have it for certain Wednesday or Thursday. I suppose you can finance matters in the meanwhile, eh?"
Kent could do no less than answer that he would try. On Monday morning, though, madame Garin's bill would come up with the first breakfast, and he saw that he would be compelled either to make an excuse to her, or to pretend to forget it till he could pay.
[CHAPTER XVI]
Their bills had been paid with such exceeding regularity up to the present that he decided to take the bolder course, distasteful as it was. He had been obliged to ask landladies to wait longer in his time, but it was one thing to be "disappointed" as a bachelor, and quite another when one had a wife, and baby, and nurse in the house. Madame Garin's countenance, moreover, was of a rather forbidding type, and did not suggest a yielding disposition in money matters. He was agreeably surprised to hear her say, after a scarcely perceptible pause, that it was of no consequence when he spoke to her in passing her little office in the hall on Monday morning. Cynthia's relief was immense; it had been a serious crisis to her, her earliest experience of having to ask for credit; and, to be on the safe side, he had not promised to pay before Thursday. Both trusted that the salary would be forthcoming on Wednesday, though, for if the nurse wanted anything bought in the meanwhile they would be obliged to temporise with her, and that would have its awkwardness.
Beaufort did not refer to the subject on Wednesday, and Kent went home with sixty-five centimes in his pocket. He got in late, and Cynthia was already at dinner. She glanced at him inquiringly as he took his seat, and he shook his head.