"I counsel you, young man," she began again. "Money won't buy everything."
He laughed good-humouredly. "Can't buy much without it," he said, with that shrewd twinkle in his eye.
"And what can Mr. Copley do for you, I should like to know?" she went on impatiently.
"He's put me in a likely way," said Rupert. "I am very much beholden to Mr. Copley. But the best thing he has done for me is this—by a long jump."
"This? What?"
"Letting me go along this journey. I do not think money is the very best of all things," the young man said with some spirit.
"Letting you—— Do you mean that you are going to Venice in our party?"
"If it is Venice you are going to."
Silence fell. Mrs. Copley pondered the news in some consternation. To Dolly it was not news, and she did not mean it should be fact, if she could help it.
"Perhaps you have business in Venice?" Mrs. Copley at length ventured.