The lawyer searched his trousers pockets, and produced a couple of pink notes and a few half-crowns. In some mysterious fashion, the whole seemed to pass into the Marquis's long, aristocratic hand. He turned to the porter who was standing bare-headed, and slipped a ten-shilling note into his palm.
"Well, good morning, Wadham," he said, stepping into his taxicab. "I have no doubt that you did your best, but this morning's unfortunate happening will take me some time to get over. My compliments to your senior partner. You can say that I am disappointed--no more."
The Marquis crossed his legs and leaned back in the vehicle. Mr. Wadham remained upon the pavement, gazing for a moment at his empty hand.
"Taxi, sir?" the hall porter asked obsequiously.
"Thank you," he replied gloomily, "I'll walk."
Lady Letitia Thursford, the only unmarried daughter of the Marquis, stood in a corner of the spacious drawing-room at 94 Grosvenor Square, talking to her brother-in-law. Sir Robert, although he wanted his luncheon very badly and, owing to some mistake, had come a quarter of an hour too soon, retained his customary good nature. He always enjoyed talking to his favourite relation-in-law.
"I say, Letty," he remarked, screwing his eyeglass into his eye and looking around, "you're getting pretty shabby here, eh?"
"That is the worst of you _nouveaux riches_," she declared. "You do not appreciate the harmonising influence of the hand of Time. This isn't shabbiness, it's tone."
"_Nouveaux riches_, indeed!" he repeated. "Better not let your father hear you call me names!"
"Father wouldn't care a bit," she replied. "As for this drawing-room, Robert, well, sixty years ago it must have been hideous. To-day I rather like it. It is absolutely and entirely Victorian, even to the smell."
"I follow you," he agreed. "Old lavender perfume, ottomans, high-backed chairs, chintzes that look as though they came out of the ark, and a few mouldy daguerreotypes. The whole thing's here, all right."
"Perhaps it's just as well for us that it is," she observed. "I have come to the conclusion that furniture people are the least trustful in the world. I don't think even dad could get a van-load of furniture on credit."