"Ay!" he said, but with less enthusiasm.

"That's three thousand a-year," she continued.

Her tone was still innocuously sympathetic. She seemed to be talking of
money as she might have talked of counters. Nevertheless, he felt that
he had been entrapped.

"I expect you must have saved at the very least thirty thousand pounds
by this time," she reflected, judicially, disinterestedly--speaking as a
lawyer might have spoken.

He offered no remark.

"That means another thirty pounds a week," she resumed. Decidedly she
was marvellous at sums of interest.

He persisted in offering no remark.

"By the way," she said, "I must look into my household accounts. How
much did you tell me you allowed Mrs. Butt a week for expenses?"

"A pound," he replied, shortly.

She made no comment. "You don't own the house, do you?" she inquired.

"No," he said.

"What's the rent?"