Page:In The Cage (London, Duckworth, 1898).djvu/186

180 'Why, to such questions—the domestic arrangements, things in the house.

'How can he, with any authority, when nothing in the house is his?'

'Not his?' The girl wondered, perfectly conscious of the appearance she thus conferred on Mrs. Jordan of knowing, in comparison with herself, so tremendously much about it. Well, there were things she wanted so to get at that she was willing at last, though it hurt her, to pay for them with humiliation. 'Why are they not his?'

'Don't you know, dear, that he has nothing?'

'Nothing?' It was hard to see him in such a light, but Mrs. Jordan's power to answer for it had a superiority that began, on the spot, to grow. 'Isn't he rich?'

Mrs. Jordan looked immensely, looked both generally and particularly, informed. 'It depends upon what you call! Not, at any rate, in the least as she is. What does he bring? Think what she has. And then, my love, his debts.'

'His debts?' His young friend was fairly betrayed into helpless innocence. She could