sband's
business--"our business" she called it--and shrank from ever saying
anything more about the more intimate question she had most in mind, the
limits to a wife's obedience, Mr. Brumley listened with these financial
solicitudes showing through his expression and giving it a quality of
intensity that she found remarkably reassuring. And once or twice they
made him miss points in her remarks that forced him back upon that very
inferior substitute for the apt answer, a judicious "Um."

(It would be quite impossible to go without tea, he decided. He himself
wanted tea quite badly. He would think better when he had had some
tea....)

The crisis came at tea. They had tea at the inn upon the green that
struck Mr. Brumley as being most likely to be cheap and which he
pretended to choose for some trivial charm about the windows. And it
wasn't cheap, and when at last Mr. Brumley was faced by the little slip
of the bill and could draw his money from his pocket and look at it, he
knew the worst and the worst was worse than he had expected. The bill
was five shillings (Should he dispute it? Too ugly altogether, a dispute
with a probably ironical waiter!) and the money in his hand amounted to
four shillings and sixpence.

He acted surprise with the waiter's eye upon him. (Should he ask for
credit? They might be frightfully disagreeable in such a cockney resort
as this.) "Tut, tut," said Mr. Brumley, and then--a little late for
it--resorted to and discovered the emptiness of his sovereign purse. He
realized that this was out of the picture at this stage, felt his ears
and nose and cheeks grow hot and pink. The waiter's colleague across the
room became interested in the proceedings.

"I had no idea," said Mr. Brumley, which was a premeditated falsehood.

"Is anything the matter?" asked Lady Harman with a sisterly interest.

"My dear Lady Harman, I find myself----Ridiculous position. Might I
borrow half a sovereign?"

He felt sure that the two waiters exchanged glances. He looked at
them,--a mistake again--and got hotter.

"Oh!" said Lady Harman and regarded him with frank amusement in her
eyes. The thing struck her at first in the light of a joke. "I've only
got one-and-eightpence. I didn't expect----"

She blushed as beautifully as ever. Then she produced a small but
plutocratic-looking purse and handed it to him.

"Most remarkable--inconvenient," said Mr. Brumley, opening the precious
thing and extracting a shilling.