The Moneychangers eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 264 pages of information about The Moneychangers.

The Moneychangers eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 264 pages of information about The Moneychangers.

CHAPTER VII

It was a week before Montague saw Lucy again.  She came in to lunch with Alice one day, when he happened to be home early.

“I went to dinner at Mrs. Frank Landis’s last night,” she said.  “And who do you think was there—­your friend, Mrs. Winnie Duval.”

“Indeed,” said Montague.

“I had quite a long talk with her,” said she.  “I liked her very much.”

“She is easy to like,” he replied.  “What did you talk about?”

“Oh, everything in the world but one thing,” said Lucy, mischievously.

“What do you mean?” asked Montague.

“You, you goose,” she answered.  “Mrs. Winnie knew that I was your friend, and I had a feeling that every word she was saying was a message to you.”

“Well, and what did she have to say to me?” he asked, smiling.

“She wants you to understand that she is cheerful, and not pining away because of you,” was the answer.  “She told me about all the things that she was interested in.”

“Did she tell you about the Babubanana?”

“The what?” exclaimed Lucy.

“Why, when I saw her last,” said Montague, “she was turning into a Hindoo, and her talk was all about Swamis, and Gnanis, and so on.”

“No, she didn’t mention them,” said Lucy.

“Well, probably she has given it up, then,” said he.  “What is it now?”

“She has gone in for anti-vivisection.”

“Anti-vivisection!”

“Yes,” said the other; “didn’t you see in the papers that she had been elected an honorary vice-president of some society or other, and had contributed several thousand dollars?”

“One cannot keep track of Mrs. Winnie in the newspapers,” said Montague.

“Well,” she continued, “she has heard some dreadful stories about how surgeons maltreat poor cats and dogs, and she would insist on telling me all about it.  It was the most shocking dinner-table conversation imaginable.”

“She certainly is a magnificent-looking creature,” said Lucy, after a pause.  “I don’t wonder the men fall in love with her.  She had her hair done up with some kind of a band across the front, and I declare she might have been an Egyptian princess.”

“She has many roles,” said Montague.

“Is it really true,” asked the other, “that she paid fifty thousand dollars for a bath-tub?”

“She says she did,” he answered.  “The newspapers say it, too, so I suppose it is true.  I know Duval told me with his own lips that she cost him a million dollars a year; but then that may have been because he was angry.”

“Is he so rich as all that?” asked Lucy.

“I don’t know how rich he is personally,” said Montague.  “I know he is one of the most powerful men in New York.  They call him the ‘System’s’ banker.”

“I have heard Mr. Ryder speak of him,” said she.

“Not very favourably, I imagine,” said he, with a smile.

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Project Gutenberg
The Moneychangers from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.