"Right? What do you mean, Scott?"
"Mrs Carteret's were not always, sir," snapped Scott, primly. "Several shops have had to apply again. Thank you, sir. Good-night."
The block of a fat cheque-book was looked at unhappily. The balance left was so small, and there was no more money due until Christmas. Bertie Carteret sighed drearily. Another lot of shares must go; long-suffering luck be trusted to replace them.
Esmé, in one of her gay moods, came down, dressed in filmy white, black velvet wound in her burnished hair, a glittering necklace at her throat. She chattered incessantly, hung about Bertie with one of her outbursts of affection.
Marie had given Madame ah, but a tiny thing for the nairves, a thing she had learnt of at Madame la Comtesse's and treasured the prescription. Marie had prescribed further, suggested massage, a sure cure for nervous ills.
Esmé made plans in her head; leapt from reckless despair to reckless hope. She spent in imagination the big allowance Bertie's uncle would give them; she saw herself "my lady." She felt clinging fingers in hers, saw baby faces in her house. She would brush away the effect of her own wicked folly; she would be happy and rich and contented.
So, with her thoughts leaping ahead, she frightened Bertie by talking of her plans; they comprised country houses, a yacht, hunters, jewels, new frocks.
"I'll have that sable coat altered. The Furrier Company will do it for a hundred pounds. I'm sick of it. We'll go to Tatts, Bertie, and buy you a couple of hunters."
"Out of what?" he asked gravely.
"Out of—futurity," Esmé laughed. "Estelle, don't look sensible; it worries me. Look here, children, I'm not well. I'm going over to Paris to see Legrand. That dull doctor's wife I met to-day says he can cure death itself. And then, when I am well—"