We are here to dine, not to talk about finance."
"Certainly, Uncle," she answered sweetly. "I stand, or rather sit,
reproved. I suppose that I have put my foot into it as usual, and the
worst of it is," she added, turning to Sir Robert, "that I am just as
ignorant as I was before."
"If you want to master these matters, Miss Champers," said Aylward with
a rather forced laugh, "you must go into training and worship at the
shrine of"--he meant to say Mammon, then thinking that the word sounded
unpleasant, substituted--"the Yellow God as we do."
At these words Alan, who had been studying his plate, looked up quickly,
and her uncle's face turned from red to white. But the irrepressible
Barbara seized upon them.
"The Yellow God," she repeated. "Do you mean money or that fetish thing
of Major Vernon's with the terrible woman's face that I saw at the
office in the City. Well, to change the subject, tell us, Alan, what is
that yellow god of yours and where did it come from?"
"My uncle Austin, who was my mother's brother and a missionary, brought
it from West Africa a great many years ago. He was the first to visit
the tribe who worship it; in fact I do not think that anyone has ever
visited them since.
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