the fat branches of the laden tree. It was
killing to creative work, but it was much easier than sordid discussion
of budget with one's wife. For the American husband is ashamed to
confess poverty to the wife of his bosom.

Milly, perceiving this power of money-getting on her husband's part, did
not take very seriously his complaints of their expenditure. Even when
they were in debt, as they usually were, she was sure it would come out
right in the end. It always had. Jack had found a way to make the extra
sums needed to wipe out the accumulation of bills. Bragdon might feel
misgivings, but he was too busy these days in the gymnastic performance
of keeping his feet from the sliding sand to indulge in long reflection.
Perhaps, in a mood of depression, induced by grippe or the coming on of
languid spring days, he would say, "Milly, let's quit this game--it's no
good--you don't get anywhere!"

Milly, recognizing the symptoms, would bring him a cocktail, prepared by
her own skilful hand and murmur sweetly,--

"What would you like to do?"

This was her role of wife, submissive to the "head of the house."

* * * * *

That archaic phrase, which Milly used with a malicious pompousness when
she wished to "put something hard up" to her lord, was of course an
ironical misnomer in this modern household. In the first place there was
no house, which demanded the service and the protection of a strong
male,--merely a partitioned-off corner in a ten-story brick box, where
no man was necessary even to shake the furnace or lock the front door.
It was "house" only symbolically, and within its limited space the
minimum of necessary service was performed by hirelings (engaged by the
mistress and under her orders). Almost all the necessities for existence
were manufactured outside and paid for at the end of each month
(supposably) by the mistress with little colored slips of paper called
cheques. In the modern world the function of the honorable head of the
house had thus been reduced to providing the banking deposit necessary
for the little strips of colored paper. He had been gradually relieved
of all other duties, stripped of his honors, and become Bank Account.
The woman was the real head of the house because she controlled the
expenditures.

"I draw all the cheques," Hazel Fredericks explained to Milly, "even for
Stanny's club bills--at is so much easier."

That was the perfect thing, Milly though