WISH you'd give your sprightly friend Lady Whiteways a hint that we've only two telephone lines here, Laura," grumbled the Duke. "I'm told the old soul's hard at it for an hour each morning! Whatever made you give her a bedroom with an extension in it?"
"She asked me if we would allow her to have a telephone. Though she's so old, she's still a very busy woman."
"She would be well advised to turn her attention to that great-nephew of hers, especially if it's true that she's left him all her money."
"Is Ronny Whiteways in trouble?" asked the Duchess, startled.
"I don't go so far as that. But he's an idle young chap; and I'm told his wife is recklessly extravagant."
"I heard them described the other day as a charming young couple."
"They're a pair of young fools, if half what I hear is true."
As the Duchess passed Lady Whiteways' bedroom door a few moments later, she heard an upraised, thin-toned voice, obviously speaking on the telephone, and she smiled as she passed on, her mind dwelling, naturally enough, on her energetic guest and her guest's peculiarities.
Though Lady Whiteways was now close on eighty, she very much disliked being treated as an old woman. If only as a survival of Victorian society, she occupied an important niche in the great world. She was far too clever to affect youth, so she dressed in a way which would have been suitable in an old-fashioned lady of fifty to sixty.
But Georgiana Whiteways, as her friends generally called her, held the sound view that a woman is only as old as she feels. She might be eighty by the calendar, but she still felt vigorous, still had a vast circle of friends, and still delighted in settling other people's affairs for them. However, as a matter of fact, this time it was someone ringing up Lady Whiteways, not Lady Whiteways getting through to someone in town.
"Is that you, Aunt Georgie?" It was the voice of her great-nephew's wife.
Lady Whiteways unconsciously stiffened herself. She felt sure an appeal was going to be made to her for money, and she was determined that she neither would, nor could, do any more for Ronny Whiteways, and his attractive, oddly-named wife, Dahlia, than she was doing already.
She knew, or thought she knew, to a penny what the young pair had to spend. Thirteen hundred a year was more than enough for a childless couple to live on comfortably, the more so that in a weak moment she had promised to pay the rent of their pretty flat in Mayfair. But though she was angrily aware that she, herself, had to pay more than twice as much for everything she bought as before the war, Lady Whiteways did not realise that this was also the case with everyone else.
"I thought you'd like to know that Ronny made quite a bit of money yesterday! It's the first commish he's had."
"Commish?" repeated the old lady, bewildered. "What d'you mean by 'commish,' Dahlia?"
"My dear Aunt Georgie! Don't pretend you don't know—'commission,' of course!" And there floated down the line the low chuckling laugh of the speaker. "He pulled off nearly three hundred pounds in about ten minutes," went on Dahlia Whiteways. "Wasn't that splendid?"
Lady Whiteways was delighted. Why three hundred pounds represented—she waited a moment—five per cent. on a capital of six thousand pounds. Though she would have been very much shocked to hear it, money was her god.
"I suppose you're having a wonderful time, Aunt Georgie?"
"Not wonderful exactly. But, yes, I think it's going to be a very pleasant party."
"Who's in the party?" came the carelessly uttered question.
"I suppose most people would call Sir Ralph Bannerman our brightest star."
"What does he do, Aunt Georgie?"
"Really, Dahlia! Surely you know that he's Chancellor of the Exchequer? He's putting the last touches to what Dessie Hilbry calls his bran-pie Budget. Then there's his secretary, Robert Roxly, and half the Cabinet and their wives besides."
"They say the Duchess is so delightful; I do wish we knew her."
"She used to be very fond of Ronny, when he was a schoolboy," came the quick reply.
"Yes, I know; but he hasn't seen her for ages. He wants me to know her, and we thought of coming down to your part of the world this next week-end. I suppose there's a decent hotel in the town?"