and ninety pounds. Her net
savings were therefore at the rate of about a hundred and fifty a year;
but she had been wonderfully lucky, and nothing said that age, illness
or such misadventures as she classed under professional risk, might not
nullify her efforts in a week. There was wear and tear of clothes too:
the trousseau presented her by Cairns had been good throughout but some
of the linen was beginning to show signs of wear; boots and shoes wanted
renewing; there were winter garments to buy and new furs.

'I shall have stone martin,' she reflected. Then her mind ran
complacently for a while on a picture of herself in stone martin; a pity
she couldn't run to sables. She brought herself back with a jerk to her
consideration of ways and means. The situation was really not brilliant.
Of course she was extravagant in a way. Eighty-five pounds rent; thirty
pounds in rates and taxes, without counting income tax which might be
anything, for she dared not protest; two servants--all that was too
much. It was quite impossible to run the house under five hundred a
year, and clothes must run into an extra hundred.

'I could give it up,' she thought. But the idea disappeared at once. A
flat would be cheaper, but it meant unending difficulties; it was not
for nothing that Zoe, Lissa and Duckie envied her. And the rose-covered
pergola! Besides it would mean saving a hundred a year or so; and, from
her point of view, even two hundred and fifty a year was not worth
saving. She was nearly twenty-eight, and could count on no more than
between eight and twelve years of great attractiveness. This meant that,
with the best of luck, she could not hope to amass much more than three
thousand pounds. And then? Weston-super-Mare and thirty years in a
boarding-house?

She was still full of hesitation and doubt as she greeted Betty at
lunch. This was a great Sunday treat for the gentle P. R. R. girl. When
she had taken off her coat and hat, she used to settle in an arm-chair
with an intimate feeling of peace and protection. This particular day
Betty did not settle down as usual, though the cushions looked soft and
tempting and a clear fire burned in the grate. Victoria watched her for
a moment. How exquisite and delicate this girl looked; tall, very slim
and rounded. Betty had placed one hand on the mantelpiece, a small long
hand rather coarsened at the finger tips, one foot on the fender. It was
a little foot, arched and neat in the cheap