“Humph.  You’re thinner.”

Lucy’s eyes laughed up at him.

“Am I?  I suppose I’m growing old.”

“You’re worrying.  What’s it about?” asked Lord Evelyn.

They were in the library.  Lord Evelyn and Denis sat by the fire in leather chairs and smoked, and Lucy sat on a hassock between them, her chin in her hands.

She was silent for a moment.  Then she looked up at Denis, who was reading
Punch, and said, “I’ve had a letter from Peggy Margerison this morning.”

Denis gave a sound between a grunt and a chuckle.  The grunt element was presumably for Peggy Margerison, the chuckle for Punch.

Lord Evelyn, tapping his eye-glass on the arm of his chair, said, “Well? 
Well?” impatiently, nervously.

Lucy drew a note from her pocket (she was never pocketless) and spread it on her knees.  It was a long letter on crinkly paper, written in a large, dashing, sprawling hand, full of curls, generosities, extravagances.

“She says,” said Lucy, “(Please listen, Denis,) that—­that they want money.”

“I somehow thought that would be what she said,” Denis murmured, still half preoccupied.  “I’m sure she’s right.”

“A woman who writes a hand like that,” put in Lord Evelyn, “will always spend more than she has.  A hole in the purse; a hole in the purse.”

“She says,” went on Lucy, looking through the letter with wrinkled forehead, “that they’re all very hard-up indeed.  Of course, I knew that; I can see it whenever I go there; only Peter will never take more than silly little clothes and things for Thomas.  And now Peggy says they’re in great straits; Thomas is going to teethe or something, and wants better milk, all from one cow, and they’re all awfully in debt.”

“I should fancy that was chronic,” remarked Denis, turning to Essence of Parliament.

“A hole in the purse, a hole in the purse,” muttered Lord Evelyn, tapping with his eye-glass.

“Peggy says that Peter won’t ask for help himself, but he’s let her, it seems.  And their boarders are nearly all gone, one of them quite suddenly, without paying a sixpence for all the time he was there.”

“I suppose he didn’t think he’d had sixpence worth,” said Denis.  “He was probably right.”

“And Thomas is still very delicate after his bronchitis, and Peter’s got a bad cold on the chest and wants more cough-mixture than they can afford to buy; and they owe money to the butcher and the fishmonger and the baker and the doctor and the tailor, and Hilary’s lost his latest job and isn’t earning anything at all.  So I suppose Peter is keeping the family.”

“Scamps; scamps all,” muttered Lord Evelyn.  “Deserve all they get, and more.  People like the Margerisons an’t worth helping.  They’d best go under at once; best go under.  Swindlers and scamps, the lot of them.  I daresay the woman’s stories are half lies; of course, they want money, but it’s probably only to spend on nonsense.  Why can’t they keep themselves, like decent people?”