pound-and-a-half spaniel called Monster, nothing
but a flea-bearing dust mop, do nothing but sit and yap for
chocolates?--what man is going to dare do otherwise than suppress
a little profanity and then go and whisper apologies at the keyhole?

After several uncomfortable weeks of this sort of mental chaos Steve
determined to do what many business men do--particularly the sort
starting life in an orphan asylum and ending by having residence pipe
organs and Russian wolfhounds frolicking at their heels--to bury
himself in his work and defend his seclusion by never refusing to
write a check for his wife. When he finally reached this decision he
was conscious of a strange joy.

Everything was a trifle too perfect to suit Steve. The entire effect
was that of the well-set stage of a society drama. Beatrice was too
correctly gowned and coiffured, always upstage if any one was about,
her high-pitched, thin voice saying superlative nothings upon the
slightest provocation; or else she was dissolving into tears and
tantrums if no one was about.

Steve could not grasp the wherefore of having such stress laid upon
the exact position of a floor cushion or the colour scheme for a
bridge luncheon--he would have so rejoiced in really mediocre table
service, in less precision as to the various angles of the shades or
the unrumpled condition of the rugs. He had not the oasis Mark
Constantine had provided for himself when he kept his room of
old-fashioned trappings apart from the rest of the mansion.

Steve needed such a room. He planned almost guiltily upon building a
shack in the woods whither he could run when things became too
impossible for his peace of mind. If he could convince his wife that a
thing was smart or different from everything else its success and
welcome in their house were assured. But an apple pie, a smelly pipe,
a maidless dinner table, or a disorderly den had never been considered
smart in Beatrice's estimation, and Steve never attempted trying to
change her point of view.

Beatrice wondered, during moments of seriousness, how it was that this
handsome cave man of hers rebelled so constantly against the beauty
and correctness of the apartment and yet never really disgraced her as
her own father would have done. It gave her added admiration for Steve
though she felt it would be a mistake to tell him so. She did not
believe in letting her husband see that she was too much in love with
him.

Despite his growls a