herself to
be very wise and also, happily, very vigorous. But at the same time
she was afflicted by a kind of despair at the thought that Louis had
indeed been, and still was, ready to commit the disastrous folly of
confiding money to Thomas Batchgrew for investment. And as Louis had
had a flashing vision of the future, so did Rachel now have such a
vision. But hers was more terrible than his. Louis foresaw merely
vexation. Rachel foresaw ruin doubtfully staved off by eternal
vigilance on her part and by nothing else--an instant's sleepiness,
and they might be in the gutter and she the wife of a ne'er-do-well.
She perceived that she must be reconciled to a future in which the
strain of intense vigilance could never once be relaxed. Strange that
a creature so young and healthy and in love should be so pessimistic,
but thus it was! She remembered in in spite of herself the warnings
against Louis which she had been compelled to listen to in the
previous year.

"Odd, of course!" said Louis. "But I can't exactly see how he'll
swindle me out of the money! A debenture is a debenture."

"Is it?"

"Do you know what a debenture is, my child?"

"I don't need to know what a debenture is, when Mr. Batchgrew's mixed
up in it."

Louis suppressed a sigh. He first thought of trying to explain to her
just what a debenture was. Then he abandoned the enterprise as too
complicated, and also as futile. Though he should prove to her that
a debenture combined the safety of the Bank of England with the
brilliance of a successful gambling transaction, she would not budge.
He was acquiring valuable and painful knowledge concerning women every
second. He grew sad, not simply with the weight of this new knowledge,
but more because, though he had envisaged certain difficulties of
married existence, he had not envisaged this difficulty. He had not
dreamed that a wife would demand a share, and demand it furiously, in
the control of his business affairs. He had sincerely imagined
that wives listened with much respect and little comprehension when
business was on the carpet, content to murmur soothingly from time to
time, "Just as you think best, dear." Life had unpleasantly astonished
him.

It was on the tip of his tongue to say to Rachel, with steadying
facetiousness--

"You mustn't forget that I know a bit about these things, having spent
years of my young life in a bank."

But a vague instinct told him that to draw attention to his care