Johnny looked at her perplexed; the note of bitterness in her voice had deepened to something more he was altogether at a loss to understand. But she gave him no opportunity for inquiry, for she opened the street door.
"Good-bye," she said, her usual self again, "and don't you let me catch you selling those things."
"Oh, I say! But how will you manage?" he protested.
"Somehow; I have got several ideas already; I'm better at this sort of game than you are, you know."
And she shut the door upon him; then she went back to Captain Polkington.
"Father," he said, "would you mind telling me if you have borrowed any other money? It would be much simpler if we knew just how we stood."
The Captain seemed to have a painfully clear idea of how he stood. "Your mother," he remarked, with apparent irrelevance, "is such an unreasonable woman; if she were like you—if she saw things sensibly. But she won't, she'll make a fuss; she will entirely overlook the fact that it is my own money that I have lost."
"I am afraid she will," Julia agreed. "Will you tell me if you lost any one else's money as well?"
"Oh, a trifle," the Captain said; "nothing to speak of yesterday; I have borrowed a little now and again, at cards and so on; a trifling accommodation."
"From whom?"