The Gktter on the Snow 83
I was aware of a violent subconscious irritation. The
man’s talk had dealt so airily with millions that I
couldn’t help recognising that I was a very poor man
indeed, by modern standards. Five or six thousand
a year, and perhaps another fifteen hundred from the
rents of the Barley Grange estate, and that infernal
income-tax and so on—I was really little better than a
pauper, and there was Lou to be considered.
I had always thought jewellery vulgar ; a signet ring
and a tie pin for a man—for a woman, a few trinkets,
very quiet, in good taste—that was the limit.
But Lou was absolutely different. She could wear
any amount of the stuff and carry it off superbly. I
had bought her a pair of ear-rings in Cartier’s yesterday
afternoon—three diamonds in a string, the pendant
being a wonderful pear-shaped blue-white, and as she
ate, and drank, and talked, they waggled behind the
angle of her jaw in the most deliciously fascinating way,
and it didn’t vulgarise her at all. :
I realised that, as a married man, it was my duty
to buy her that string of pearls with the big black
pearl as a pendant, and there was that cabochon
emerald ring! How madly that would go with her
hair. And then, of course, when we got back to England,
she must be presented at Court, not but what we
Pendragons don’t feel it a little humiliating—that
meant a tiara, of course.
And then you know what dressmakers are |!
There’s simply no end to the things that a civilised
man has to have when he’s married! And here was I,
to all intents and purposes, a case for out-door relief.
I came out of my reverie with a start. My mind was
made up.
Lou was laughing hysterically at some story of a
blind man and a gimlet. ;
“Look here, Feccles,” I said. “I wish you'd tell
me a little more about this oil business. To tell you
the truth, I’m not the rich man you seem to think——”
“My dear fellow—” said Feccles.