Bertie laid it down with a sick feeling of despair. He could not pay this. It was impossible. Five hundred pounds to a dressmaker. Dollie Gresham had been right in her estimate. He sat looking at the dull blue of the drawing-room carpet, sat thinking hopelessly.
Then Esmé, in dull blue-green, masses of black making a foil to her fair skin, came back. A faint perfume clung about her, nothing emphasized, but the memory of sachets or little pieces of perfumed skin sewn into her dress.
The necklace of small sapphires and diamonds glistened at her throat. She was humming gaily, ready to write to Denise.
"Esmé!" Bertie raised his white face.
"Bertie! Have the Germans taken London, or is Lloyd George made Regent? Or—you're not ill, Bertie?"
"We can't go on, Esmé," he said. "I saw your account on your bureau there. Esmé, I can't pay it, unless we sell everything—go away."
He saw her hand clench, but she did not look at him.
"How dared you pry?" she began, then checked herself. "Paul Pry!" she mocked. "Paul Pry! But I can pay it."
"You? How?" he asked, getting up.
"How? I've won a lot lately," she said, after a pause. "I got some tips. I can pay it, Bertie."