Page:In The Cage (London, Duckworth, 1898).djvu/63

Rh her private recreation—she was sure it wouldn't reach Mr. Mudge—the low intonation of the counter-clerk.

'And where do they come from?' her companion candidly inquired.

She had to think a moment; then she found something. 'From the "spring meetings." They bet tremendously.'

'Well, they bet enough at Chalk Farm, if that's all.'

'It isn't all. It isn't a millionth part!' she replied with some sharpness. 'It's immense fun'—she would tantalise him. Then, as she had heard Mrs. Jordan say, and as the ladies at Cocker's even sometimes wired, 'Its [sic] quite too dreadful!' She could fully feel how it was Mr. Mudge's propriety, which was extreme—he had a horror of coarseness and attended a Wesleyan chapel—that prevented his asking for details. But she gave him some of the more innocuous in spite of himself, especially putting before him how, at Simpkin's and Ladle's, they all made the money fly. That was indeed what he liked to hear: the connection was not direct, but one