He had let her go, and was walking about the room with his hands in his pockets. When he spoke again, it was sullenly and grumblingly.
"I know nothing whatever about it. I can keep accounts in my head just as well as in the books.... If I seem unbusinesslike—it is because I'm called away so often; and those fools don't understand my system.... I go for facts, and don't bother about all the fuss of book-keeping—which is generally in a muddle whenever I ask for plain statements.... No, you've got on to a wrong track. But I'll go to the bottom of the matter to-morrow—or the day after. I'm busy with other things to-morrow."
"Never mind what's past, Dick; but go into matters for the future."
"All right. Then say no more. Don't nag me.... And look here. Of course I fully intend to pay you your share. I admit the debt. I owe you fifty pounds."
He had been cowed for a few moments; but now he was recovering his angry bluster.
"That's enough," he went on. "I'll settle as soon as I can. But, upon my word, you are turning into a harpy for ready money. What have you done with all your own? How have you dribbled it away—and let yourself get so low that you have to come howling for a beggarly fifty pounds?"
Mrs. Marsden raised her hands to her forehead, with a gesture that he might interpret as expressive of hopeless despair; but she did not answer him in words.
"Oh, all right," he growled, to himself rather than to her. "The old explanation, I suppose. I'm to be the scapegoat! But I know jolly well where your money has gone. Enid and that squalling brat have pretty near cleared you out. Nothing's too much for Enid to ask.... If I wasn't a fool, I should forbid her the house.... And I will too, if you drive me to it."
It maddened him to think of all the sovereigns that might have chinked in his pocket, if Enid had not rapaciously intervened.