She at last made her appearance, looking charming, with her hair scarce dry gathered loosely up with a turquoise-studded comb and a morning-gown of cloudy lace and chiffon floating about her; a modern Aphrodite.
“You have made your husband a director in the City,” said Hurstmanceaux without preface, almost before she had entered the room.
She was prepared for the attack and smiled, rather impertinently.
“What does it matter to you, Ronnie?”
“A director of a bank!”
“’Tisn’t your bank, is it?”
“A director of a bank!” he repeated. It seemed to him so monstrous, so shocking that he had no words left.
“They won’t let him into the strong-room,” said Cocky’s wife. “It may be rather absurd; but it isn’t more absurd than numbers of other things—than your being asked to be a mayor, for instance.”
“If I had accepted I should not have disgraced the mayoralty.”
“Cocky won’t disgrace anything. They’ll look after him.”