V
“Yes, I see,” said Guy, clearing his throat, looking with concern at the piece of sweet biscuit in his hand, “... certainly. Why don’t you ... well, you know, find out how much they need, make out a check, and....”
Aunt Esther covertly twittered again, her eyes bright above the very white hand that hid her mouth, and Agnes turned her own face sharply away in mock exasperation with the boy.
“Not give them the money, Guy!” Agnes exclaimed. “They wouldn’t hear of it, of course—the young man, Sol, especially. Surely you know how proud those people are ... a defensive-mechanism, I suppose; but there you are, even so! No—what I had in mind was to tell them of a stock to buy, you see.”
“Right,” said Guy crisply, “then they would take one of the trips later, that the idea? But, hold on—if they spend all their money on the one trip, how can they buy into the stock in question?”
“Guy!” said his aunt in a voice of ice and pain.
“I’m afraid I don’t follow,” said Grand with perfect candor.
Aunt Esther took refuge behind her kerchief, into her ceaseless giggling.
“I mean make it go up and down!” cried Agnes crossly. “Or rather down first, then up.”
She regarded him narrowly for a moment, her thinness stretching upwards like an angry swan, suspecting perhaps that he was being deliberately obtuse.