"Three hundred what? Did you say three hundred pounds, or am I going mad and deaf? Three hundred pounds? Why, that's nearly a whole year's allowance. Do you seriously mean to tell me that you've allowed Geoffrey to play ducks and drakes with three hundred pounds of your money?" "Frankly, Jemmie, I don't think that the amount matters," she said. "Three hundred pounds or three hundred pence, if he can't pay, the large sum is morally no worse than the smaller." Jemmie began to splutter. "Now that's a woman all over. No idea whatever of the value of money. It's not a question of morality, my dear. It's a question of finance. He knows very well, even if you don't, that he has no more business to risk three hundred pounds than I have to risk three thousand. A fine father my children would call me if I started gambling and gambled away all their inheritance." "Jemmie dear, there is really no need for you to get angry with me," she protested. "I am as well aware as you how wrong it is of Geoffrey to gamble. But I do blame my own indulgence. I ought to have refused to give him the money and sent him to you. I don't know why I didn't. I suppose it was an absurd kind of jealousy. I suppose really that I hoped to make him fonder of me by giving him the money he wanted." "But why have you told me now?" her husband asked in sudden bewilderment. Mary looked unhappy. "Promise me," she began, "that if I tell you something more you won't fly into a rage with Geoffrey and by losing your temper perhaps do him more harm than good. Promise me that, Jemmie, before I tell you anything more." "He's not been stealing? He hasn't committed forgery or anything like that, has he?" stammered an apprehensive father. "No, it's not quite so bad as that," she laughed sadly. "But you haven't promised." "As long as it's nothing criminal, I promise to do my utmost to be patient with the boy." Mary hesitated for a few moments, half regretting that she had raised the subject of Geoffrey's behavior. Then she plunged. "It's this girl at the White Hart. Mrs. Woldingham came to see me this morning...." "Girl at the White Hart?" Jemmie interrupted. "What has Mrs. Woldingham got to do with girls at the White Hart, even if she is the Rector's wife?" "Jemmie, I must beg you not to interrupt me. If you will have the patience to let me say what I was going to say, you'll hear. Mrs. Woldingham, who came to see me about the Bazaar which is being got up for the debt on the new peal of bells, spoke very nicely about Geoffrey, and I'm sure she had not the least idea of making mischief or repeating village gossip. But people are beginning to talk about Geoffrey's being seen so often at the White Hart." "Drinking too!" the father apostrophized. "Great Heavens, my second son appears to have every vice." "No, not drinking," Mary contradicted irritably. "At least Mrs. Woldingham did not suggest that he was drinking. The attraction is this girl." "What girl?"