fell upon calculations of his income, present and prospective, while she
sat at the table and he stood behind her. Others were wrangling for
places, chairs, plates, glasses, game-pie, champagne: she had them; the
lady under his charge to a certainty would have them; so far good; and he
had seven hundred pounds per annum--seven hundred and fifty, in a
favourable aspect, at a stretch . . . .

'Yes, the pleasantest thing to me after working all day is an opera of
Carini's,' she said, in full accord with her taste, 'and Tellio for
tenor, certainly.'

--A fair enough sum for a bachelor: four hundred personal income, and a
prospect of higher dividends to increase it; three hundred odd from his
office, and no immediate prospects of an increase there; no one died
there, no elderly martyr for the advancement of his juniors could be
persuaded to die; they were too tough to think of retiring. Say, seven
hundred and fifty . . . . eight hundred, if the commerce of the
country fortified the Bank his property was embarked in; or eight-fifty
or nine ten. . . .

'I could call him my poet also,' Mr. Redworth agreed with her taste in
poets. 'His letters are among the best ever written--or ever published:
the raciest English I know. Frank, straight out: capital descriptions.
The best English letter-writers are as good as the French--

You don't think so?--in their way, of course. I dare' say we don't
sufficiently cultivate the art. We require the supple tongue a closer
intercourse of society gives.'

--Eight or ten hundred. Comfortable enough for a man in chambers. To