"But could you? And it's such a dear little flat. Could you afford it, Esmé dear? You are so comfy there."
The butler brought in the evening papers. Before they settled to play bridge Sir Cyril opened them.
"Why, Mrs Carteret," he said, "this is awful about your cousins surely. The two Carteret boys have both been killed in a motor accident. It makes Bertie heir, I suppose, but what a tragedy."
Esmé caught at the paper and read it feverishly. "To the title," she said. "It's entailed. Hugh Carteret can leave his money as he chooses—unless we have children." But she knew what a difference it must make.
"You'll have to follow my example and have an heir now," laughed Denise. "To make it all certain. Eh, Esmé?"
Esmé sat with the paper in her hands and did not answer.
CHAPTER VII
Spring rioting, chill and bleak, crushing the coming summer in its impish hands. A day when cold came creeping under doors, sat even by the fire and would not be denied.
Looking into her draped glass Esmé was struck by new lines in her face, by a loss of her dazzling youth, by a tired look in her eyes. Discontent, weariness, were writing their names on her skin.