"Some Asti Spumante, Ricci."
"To the rejected Titian—" I suggested for the first toast.
VENICE, May, 1896.
PAYMENT IN FULL
The two black horses attached to the light buggy were chafing in the crisp October air. Their groom was holding them stiffly, as if bolted to the ground, in the approved fashion insisted upon by the mistress of the house. Old Stuart eyed them impatiently from the tower window of the breakfast-room where he was smoking his first cigar; Mrs. Stuart held him in a vise of astounding words.
"They will need not only the lease of a house in London for two years, but a great deal of money besides," she continued in even tones, ignoring his impatience.
"I've done enough for 'em already," the old fellow protested, drawing on his driving gloves over knotted hands stained by age.
Mrs. Stuart rustled the letter that lay, with its envelope, beside her untouched plate. It bore the flourishes of a foreign hotel and a foreign-looking stamp.
"My mother writes that their summer in Wiesbaden has made it surer that Lord Raincroft is interested in Helen. It is evidently a matter of time. I say two years—it may be less."
"Well," her husband broke in. "Haven't they enough to live on?"