"All the truest pleasure in life comes from doing things one hasn't been allowed to do," he observed. "To enjoy anything properly one ought to go in for a long course of self-denial first."
"I—I suppose you're right," said Isabel doubtfully, "but it's rather difficult, isn't it?"
"I should think it was," said Tony. "I have never tried it myself." He felt in his pocket for a moment, and then pulled out a cheque book, which bore the stamped address of the same Hampstead bank at which he kept his own account.
"This is yours, Isabel," he said handing it across to her. "I have paid the money I got for the brooch into your account, so you can go on shopping as long and fiercely as you like. Do you know how to draw a cheque?"
Isabel nodded. "Oh, yes," she said. "You just fill it in and write your name at the bottom, and then they give you the money. It's quite easy, isn't it."
"Quite," said Tony. "All real miracles are."
Isabel slipped away the cheque book into her bag. Then she looked at Tony with that half childish and wholly delightful smile of hers.
"Now I am rich," she said. "I can begin entertaining." She hesitated. "Should I be doing anything very dreadful—I—I mean from the English point of view—if I asked you to come and have dinner with me somewhere to-night?"
"Of course you wouldn't," said Tony firmly. "A queen has an absolutely free hand about things like that. It's what is called the Royal Prerogative. There is a well established precedent in the case of Queen Elizabeth and the Earl of Leicester."
"That's all right then," said Isabel in a relieved voice. "What time will you come?"