the rest of the day, he asked her tenderly if
her head ached, and enlarged enthusiastically on the goodness of Mr and
Mrs Goring in proposing to despoil their own home.

"You'll find life easier, I hope, darling, in a smaller house. They've
been a worry to you sometimes, all these collections, keeping them
cleaned and dusted, and that kind of thing. We'll go in for the simple
life, and be done with useless ornamentation," he declared cheerily.

Now that the first shock of the misfortune had spent itself, his
invincible optimism was slowly but surely beginning to make itself felt.
The worst had happened; every penny that could be scraped together had
already been confiscated; he faced the situation, and calmly and
courageously set his face towards a fresh start.

"Jean doesn't mind. Jean says she is prepared. That takes away the
sting. So long as she is happy, it doesn't matter a rap to me where we
live. After all, we ought to consider ourselves jolly lucky. It's only
the extras which we shall have to shed, while many poor wretches will be
in actual need. We ought to be thankful!"

As the weeks passed by, Robert's complacence increased, just as, in
inverse ratio, Jean's courage collapsed. It was one thing to declare
the world well lost, when her husband lay in her arms, broken-hearted,
dependent on her support; but it required a vastly more difficult effort
to maintain that attitude during the painful process of hunting for a
house at about a third of the old rent, and arranging her treasured
possessions for an auction sale. To Vanna, her invariable safety-valve,
Jean poured forth her feelings, in characteristic, highly coloured
language.

"I feel sometimes as if I could not bear it another moment--as if I must
shriek, as if I must scream, as if I must take Rob by the arms and shake
him till I drop! It's so maddening to be taken so literally at one's
word, and to be expected to sit smiling on the top of a pedestal while
the world rocks. Yesterday, going over that hateful, stuffy little
house, when he would persistently make the best of everything, even the
view of the whitewashed yard and I had to go on smiling and smiling as
if I agreed, I felt as if something in my head would snap... I believe
it will some day, and I shall lose control, and rage, and say terrible
things, and he will be broken hearted with sorrow--and surprise! He
hasn't an idea, not a glimmering ghost of an idea, what I'm suffering!