l for her.
Looking round the luxuriously furnished room with its blazing fire, and
then at Mrs. Selwyn herself, elegantly clad in a rest-gown of rich silk,
she could better understand the poverty-stricken appearance of the rest
of the house, Dick's shabby clothes, and his willingness to receive a
paying guest whose contribution towards the housekeeping might augment
his slender income.

Here, then, was where his hard-earned guineas went--to keep in luxury
this petulant, complaining woman whose entire thoughts were centred
about her own bodily comfort, and whom Patrick Lovell, with his lucid
recognition of values, would have contemptuously described as "a
parasite woman, m'dear--the kind of female I've no use for."

"Oh, Dick"--Mrs. Selwyn had been turning over the pages of a price-list
that was lying on her knee--"I see the World's Store have just brought
out a new kind of adjustable reading-table. It's a much lighter make
than the one I have. I think I should find it easier to use."

Selwyn's face clouded.

"How much does it cost, dear?" he asked nervously. "These mechanical
contrivances are very expensive, you know."

"Oh, this one isn't. It's only five guineas."

"Five guineas is rather a lot of money, Minnie," he said gravely.
"Couldn't you manage with the table you have for a bit longer?"

Mrs. Selwyn tossed the price-list pettishly on to the floor.

"Of, of course!" she declared. "That's always the way. 'Can't I manage
with what I have? Can't I make do with this, that, and the other?'
I believe you grudge every penny you spend on me!" she wound up
acrimoniously.

A dull red crept into Selwyn's face.

"You know it's not that, Minnie," he replied in a painfully controlled
voice. "It's simply that I _can't afford_ these things. I give you
everything I can. If I were only a rich man, you should have everything
you want."

"Perhaps if you were to work a little more intelligently you'd make more
money," she retorted. "If only you'd keep your brains for the use of
people who can _pay_--and pay well--I shouldn't be deprived of every
little comfort I ask for! Instead of that, you've got half the poor of
Monkshaven on your hands--and if you think they can't afford to pay, you
simply don't send in a bill. Oh, _I_ know!"--sitting up excitedly in her
chair, a patch of angry scarlet staining each cheek--"I hear what
goes on--even shut away from the world as I am. It's just to curry
popularity--you get all the prai