"No—hand embroidery," she said carelessly. "Everyone gets them."
"They seem to represent gold, you extravagant child."
"Dollie Maynard had them; she kind of crowed over mine last day we had bridge here. I must have things same as other people, Bert. I can't be shabby and dowdy."
"So it seems." He opened several other letters. "Well, we can just do it, girlie, so it doesn't matter. Breakfast now. I was working hard this morning."
"And I was eating strawberries. Bobbie sent them. There are eggs for you."
"Once upon a time laid by a hen," he said resignedly. "Got the stalls for to-night. That blue gown suits you, Butterfly."
"It ought to," she said, coming in to give him his breakfast. "It cost fifteen guineas."
Bertie Carteret was adjutant of volunteers in London; he had taken it to please Esmé, who would not endure the idea of a country station in Ireland.
Now Carteret was going abroad, his adjutancy over. His battalion was in South Africa; he was to join it there until he got something else to do. Esmé flashed out at the thought of the place.
"Dust and bottled butter; black servants and white ants. No thank you, Bertie—I won't go."