‘Comfortably off fifty years ago means pinched now, and pinched now means screwed flat fifty years hence. Everything is becoming costly. Living is a luxury only for the well-to-do. The rest merely exist under sufferance.’
‘Miss Eve will not be pinched,’ answered Mr. Jordan, unconscious that he was being drawn out by the surgeon. ‘Seventeen years ago I lent fifteen hundred pounds, which is to be returned to me on Midsummer Day. To that I can add about five hundred; I have saved something since—not much, for somehow the estate has not answered as it did of old.’
‘You have two daughters.’
‘Oh, yes, there is Barbara,’ said Jordan in a tone of indifference. ‘Of course she will have something, but then—she can always manage for herself—with the other it is different.’
‘Are you ill?’ asked Coyshe, suddenly, observing that Jasper had turned very pale, and dark under the eyes. ‘Is the air too strong for you?’
‘No, let me remain here. The sun does me good.’
Mr. Jordan was rather glad of this opportunity of publishing the fortune he was going to give his younger daughter. He wished it to be known in the neighbourhood, that Eve might be esteemed and sought by suitable young men. He often said to himself that he could die content were Eve in a position where she would be happy and admired.
‘When did Miss Eve’s mother die?’ asked Coyshe abruptly. Mr. Jordan started.
‘Did I say she was dead? Did I mention her?’
Coyshe mused, put his hand through his hair and ruffled it up; then folded his arms and threw out his legs.