“I tell him he ought to leave London,” Marion began again; “he needs a change and a rest.”
“I should think he might,” Helen agreed, “after three months of this heat. He wrote me he intended going to Herne Bay or over to Ostend.”
“Yes, he had meant to go,” Marion answered. She spoke with the air of one who possessed the most intimate knowledge of Carroll’s movements and plans, and change of plans. “But he couldn’t,” she added. “He couldn’t afford it. Helen,” she said, turning to the other girl, dramatically, “do you know—I believe that Philip is very poor.”
Miss Cabot exclaimed incredulously, “Poor!” She laughed. “Why, what do you mean?”
“I mean that he has no money,” Marion answered, sharply. “These rooms represent nothing. He only keeps them on because he paid for them in advance. He’s been living on three shillings a day. That’s poor for him. He takes his meals at cabmen’s shelters and at Lockhart’s, and he’s been doing so for a month.”
Helen recalled with a guilty thrill the receipt of certain boxes of La France roses—cut long, in the American fashion—which had arrived within the last month at various country houses. She felt indignant at herself, and miserable. Her indignation was largely due to the recollection that she had given these flowers to her hostess to decorate the dinner-table.
She hated to ask this girl of things which she should have known better than any one else. But she forced herself to do it. She felt she must know certainly and at once.
“How do you know this?” she asked. “Are you sure there is no mistake?”
“He told me himself,” said Marion, “when he talked of letting the plays go and returning to America. He said he must go back; that his money was gone.”
“He is gone to America!” Helen said, blankly.