“I never looked at so many things in my life,” said Alice. “And Mr. Mann never stopped to ask the price of a thing.”
“I didn’t think to tell him to,” said Oliver, laughing.
Then the girl went in to dress—and Oliver faced about to find his brother sitting and staring hard at him.
“Tell me!” Montague exclaimed. “In God’s name, what is all this to cost?”
“I don’t know,” said Oliver, impassively. “I haven’t seen the bills. It’ll be fifteen or twenty thousand, I guess.”
Montague’s hands clenched involuntarily, and he sat rigid. “How long will it all last her?” he asked.
“Why,” said the other, “when she gets enough, it’ll last her until spring, of course—unless she goes South during the winter.”
“How much is it going to take to dress her for a year?”
“I suppose thirty or forty thousand,” was the reply. “I don’t expect to keep count.”
Montague sat in silence. “You don’t want to shut her up and keep her at home, do you?” inquired his brother, at last.