Internally raging Anthony hurried back to the Ritz to report his discomfiture to Gloria.
"I can just see you," she stormed, "letting him back you down!"
"What could I say?"
"You could have told him what he was. I wouldn't have stood it. No other man in the world would have stood it! You just let people order you around and cheat you and bully you and take advantage of you as if you were a silly little boy. It's absurd!"
"Oh, for Heaven's sake, don't lose your temper."
"I know, Anthony, but you _are_ such an ass!"
"Well, possibly. Anyway, we can't afford that apartment. But we can afford it better than living here at the Ritz."
"You were the one who insisted on coming here."
"Yes, because I knew you'd be miserable in a cheap hotel."
"Of course I would!"
"At any rate we've got to find a place to live."
"How much can we pay?" she demanded.
"Well, we can pay even his price if we sell more bonds, but we agreed last night that until I had gotten something definite to do we-"
"Oh, I know all that. I asked you how much we can pay out of just our income."
"They say you ought not to pay more than a fourth."
"How much is a fourth?"
"One hundred and fifty a month."
"Do you mean to say we've got only six hundred dollars coming in every month?" A subdued note crept into her voice.
"Of course!" he answered angrily. "Do you think we've gone on spending more than twelve thousand a year without cutting way into our capital?"
"I knew we'd sold bonds, but--have we spent that much a year? How did we?" Her awe increased.
"Oh, I'll look in those careful account-books we kept," he remarked ironically, and then added: "Two rents a good part of the time, clothes, travel--why, each of those springs in California cost about four thousand dollars. That darn car was an expense from start to finish. And parties and amusements and--oh, one thing or another."
They were both excited now and inordinately depressed. The situation seemed worse in the actual telling Gloria than it had when he had first made the discovery himself.
"You've got to make some money," she said suddenly.
"I know it."
"And you've got to make another attempt to see your grandfather."