"You've got money to your account, then?" he said, for he knew that she was lying again.
"Not now."
"Bookmakers," said Bertie, "pay on Mondays. Who is your man?"
"Oh! don't bother, Bertie." Her hands shook as she began to write. "Denise did the bet for me. I'm writing to ask her to send it on now."
"Oh!" he said, more quietly still.
"I backed first one and then another," she said; "got it that way. So don't fret, Boy."
"But if you had not won," he said softly. "The account is not new, Esmé."
"I chanced it! I let the winnings go on to other gees." He could hear the anger rising in her voice. "I chanced it. Don't bother now, I'm writing."
"But I must bother, Esmé. We can't go on like this. We're getting poorer every day. If we had a child things would be different, but as it is Hugh Carteret will leave me Cliff End and what he allows me now—four hundred a year."
"And you'll be Lord De Vinci," she said.