Page:The Reverberator (2nd edition, American issue, London and New York, Macmillan & Co., 1888).djvu/128

118 coming down to the knees), but he could remember Mme. de Marignac's Tuesdays and Thursdays and Fridays, with Sundays and other days thrown in, and the taste that prevailed in that milieu: the books they admired, the verses they read and recited, the pictures, great heaven! they thought good, and the three busts of the lady of the house, in different corners (as a Diana, a Druidess and a Croyante: her shoulders were supposed to make up for her head), effigies which to-day—even the least bad, Canova's—would draw down a public castigation upon their authors.

"And what else is she worth?" Mr. Probert asked, after a momentary hesitation.

"How do you mean, what else?"

"Her immense prospects, that's what Susan has been putting forward. Susan's insistence on them was mainly what brought over Jane. Do you mind my speaking of them?"

Gaston was obliged to recognise, privately, the importance of Jane's having been brought over, but he hated to hear it spoken of as if he were under an obligation to it. "To whom, sir?" he asked.

"Oh, only to you."

"You can't do less than Mr. Dosson. As I told you, he waived the question of money and he was superb. We can't be more mercenary than he."

"He waived the question of his own, you mean?" said Mr. Probert.