Page:The Criterion - Volume 4.djvu/71

 like a donkey and would not be moved. Money was the one thing he never had a difficulty in being firm about.

'But come,' said Spiller, 'come. What's a thousand pounds to a millionaire like you? You've got—how much have you got?'

Gregory stared him glassily in the eyes. 'Twelve hundred a year,' he said. 'Say fourteen hundred. 'He could see that Spiller didn't believe him. Damn the man.' Not that he really expected him to believe; but still 'And then there are one's taxes,' he added plaintively, 'and one's contributions to charities.' He remembered that fiver he was going to send to the London Hospital. 'The London Hospital, for example—always short of money.' He shook his head sadly. 'Quite impossible, I'm afraid.' He thought of all the unemployed; ten Derby crowds, half starved, with banners and brass bands. He felt himself blushing. Damn the man! He was furious with Spiller.

Two voices sounded simultaneously in his ears: the professional drunkard's and another, a woman's—Molly's.

'The succubus!' groaned the professional drunkard. Il ne manquait que ça!

'Impossible?' said Molly's voice, unexpectedly repeating his latest word. 'What's impossible.'

'Well,' said Gregory, embarrassed, and hesitated.

It was Spiller who explained.

'Why, of course Gregory can put up a thousand pounds,' said Molly, when she had learned what was the subject at issue. She looked at him indignantly, contemptuously, as though reproaching him for his avarice.

'You know better than I, then,' said Gregory, trying to take the airy jocular line about the matter. He remembered what the enviably successful friend had told him about compliments. 'How lovely you look in that white dress, Molly,' he added and tempered the jocularity of his smile with a glance that was meant to be at once insolent