"Yes," she gasped, "I know, James. We'd both find ourselves under arrest. Such a contretemps is really too terrible to think of."
"But, my dear girl, it must be faced," he said, "if we don't get the money. Can't you work Sir Henry for a bit more, say another thousand. Make an excuse that you have bills to pay in London—dressmakers, jewellers, milliners—any good story will surely do. He gives you anything you ask for."
She shook her head and sighed. "I fear I've imposed upon his good-nature far too much already," she answered. "I know I'm extravagant; I'm sorry, but can't help it. Born in me, I suppose. A few months ago he found out that I'd been paying Mellish a hundred pounds each time to decorate Park Street with flowers for my Wednesday evenings, and he created an awful scene. He's getting horribly stingy of late."
"Yes; but the flowers were a bit expensive, weren't they?" he remarked.
"Not at all. Lady Fortrose, the wife of the soap-man, pays two hundred and fifty pounds for flowers for her house every Thursday in the season; and mine looked quite as good as hers. I think Mellish is much cheaper than anybody else. And, just because I went to a cheap man, Henry was horrible. He said all sorts of weird things about my reckless extravagance and the suffering poor—as though I had anything to do with them. The genuine poor are really people like you and me."
"I know," he said philosophically, lighting another cigarette. "But all this is beside the point. We want money, and money we must have in order to avoid exposure. You—"
"I was a fool to have had anything to do with that other little affair," she interrupted.
"It was not only myself who arranged it. Remember, it was you who suggested it, because it seemed so easy, and because you had an old score to pay off."
"The woman was sacrificed, and at the same time an enemy learnt our secret."
"I couldn't help it," he protested. "You let your woman's vindictiveness overstep your natural caution, my dear girl. If you'd taken my advice there would have been no suspicion."