“Mary has just a hundred a year,” she said, her voice low-toned as she looked across the room to where, demure in braided locks and grey camlet, her companion sat knitting.
“I daresay,” Michael answered indifferently, following her eyes’ flight and her tone’s low pitch; “but she’s young. I shall advertise for an elderly housekeeper. And qui vivra verra.”
The words, lightly cast on the thin soil of a foolish word-play with a pretty woman, bore fruit.
A week later Michael Wood stood aghast before a tray heaped with letters, answers to his advertisement:
“Housekeeper wanted. Must be middle-aged. The older the better. Salary, £500 a year.”
Not much, he had thought, £500 a year—if, by paying it, he might win a wife who would entitle him to an annual £15,000, whose declining years he might kindly cheer, and whose death would set him free to marry a wife whom he could love. His fancy drifted pleasantly towards Sylvia.
Michael was a lazy man, who bristled with business instincts. He telephoned to the nearest “typewriters’ association” for a
