ation. Laurence Stanninghame turned again to his wife, who was
still seated at the table.

"Continue," he said. "It is a great art knowing when to make the most of
one's opportunities, which, for present purposes, may be taken to mean
that you had better let off all the steam you can, for you have only two
days more to do it in--only two whole days."

"Going away again?" (staccato).

Laurence nodded, and emitted a cloud or two of smoke.

There rumbled forth a cannonade of words, which did not precisely
express approval. Then, staccato:

"Where are you going to this time?"

"Johannesburg."

"What? But it's nonsense."

"It's fact."

"Well--of course you can't go."

"Who says so?"

"Of course you can't go, and leave us here all alone," she replied,
speaking quickly. "Why, it's too preposterous! I've been treated
shamefully enough all these years, but this puts the crowning straw on
to it," she went on, beginning to mix her metaphor, as angry people--and
especially angry women--will. "Of course you can't go!"

To one statement, as made above, he was at no pains to reply. He had
heard it so often that it had long since passed into the category of
"not new, not true, and doesn't matter." To the other he answered:

"I've an idea that the term 'of course' makes the other way; I _can_ go,
and I am going--in fact, I have already booked my passage by the
_Persian_, sailing from Southampton the day after to-morrow. Look! will
that convince you?" holding out the passage ticket.

Then there was a scene--an awful racket. It was infamous. She would not
put up with such treatment. It amounted to desertion, and so forth. Yes,
it was a "scene," indeed. But force of habit had utterly dulled its
effectiveness as a weapon. Indeed, the only effect it might have been
calculated to produce in the mind of the offending party had he not
already secured his berth, would be that of moving him to sally forth
and carry out that operation on the spot.

"Look here!" he said, when failure of breath and vocabulary had perforce
effected a lull. "I've had about enough of this awful life, and so I'm
going to try if I can't do something to set things right again, before
it's too late. Now, the Johannesburg 'boom' is the thing to do it, if
anything will. It's kill or cure."

"And what if it's kill?"

"What if it's kill? Then, one may as well take it fighting. Better,
anyway, than scattering one's brains on that hearth-rug some morning in