It brought in actually about four. (I am
talking in pounds, not dollars.) Edward's excesses with the Spanish
Lady had reduced its value to about three--as the maximum figure,
without reductions. Leonora wanted to get it back to five.
She was, of course, very young to be faced with such a
proposition--twenty-four is not a very advanced age. So she did
things with a youthful vigour that she would, very likely, have
made more merciful, if she had known more about life. She got
Edward remarkably on the hop. He had to face her in a London
hotel, when he crept back from Monte Carlo with his poor tail
between his poor legs. As far as I can make out she cut short his
first mumblings and his first attempts at affectionate speech with
words something like: "We're on the verge of ruin. Do you intend
to let me pull things together? If not I shall retire to Hendon on
my jointure." (Hendon represented a convent to which she
occasionally went for what is called a "retreat" in Catholic
circles.) And poor dear Edward knew nothing--absolutely nothing.
He did not know how much money he had, as he put it, "blued" at
the tables. It might have been a quarter of a million for all he
remembered.
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