Katherine had come in all glowing with excitement. She pushed back her broad-brimmed hat from her forehead, and thrust both hands into her coat-pockets, bringing out two loose heaps of gold.
"There!" she said, letting sovereigns and half-sovereigns drip on to the table with an impressive chink, "aren't you thankful that I wasn't murdered, walking through the great sinful city with all that capital about me?"
"What's up? Has our uncle climbed down, or have you been robbing a till?"
"Neither. I've been to the bank, cashing real live cheques. Five pounds for my black-and-white for the Saint Abroad, I mean the "Woman at Home." Fifteen pounds for Miss Maskelyne's prize bull-dog (I idealised him). Twenty pounds for Lady Stodart's prize baby. Total, forty pounds." She arranged the sovereigns in neat little piles on the table. "That's enough to take you to Paris and set you going." Ted started, and his face fell a little. "It's positively my only dream that ever came true. Picture it, think of it, just on the brink of it. You can start next week, to-morrow if you like!"
Ted's face turned a deep crimson, and he was silent.
"Then Audrey's promised me twenty for a copy of the Botticelli Madonna; I began it yesterday. That'll be enough to keep you on another month, if you want it, and bring you home again."
Still Ted said nothing. He sat down and buried his face in his hands. Katherine knelt down and put her arm tight round his neck.
"Ted, you duffer, do you really care so much? I am so glad. I didn't know you'd take it that way."
He drew back and looked her mournfully in the face.
"Kathy, you're an angel; it's awfully good of you; but I—I can't take it, you know."