und-ten! Four pounds!
After all the expenses I'd had."

"Well...." she said, swallowing hard, "well, come and see Mr. Rokeby's
present. It's a ten-guinea carriage, Osborn; nothing less."

He swung round and looked at her, palsied in amazement.

"Ten guineas! _Ten!_ Good God! Why ... it takes me the best part
of three weeks to earn what that baby of yours just rides about in!"

"Aren't you coming down to see it?"

"I--I shall see it as I go out, thanks."

"When you--go out!"

She looked down quickly and noted that he had not taken off his boots.

She said in a changed voice: "You're going out?"

"I promised a man to look in and see the show at The Happy with him
to-night. Just in the prom, you know. We haven't got stalls like
giddy bachelors!"

"Osborn, can't you stay in? It--it's lonely all day, and I look
forward to your coming home."

"You didn't seem to look forward very kindly last night."

She cried with hot resentment: "I thought you didn't want that
mentioned again!"

"Oh, very well! And I shall be in to-morrow night; won't that do? A
man can't be always tied up to the kitchen table, you know. Besides, I
promised Dicky Vendo I'd go; his wife's away, and he's free."

"Yours isn't away."

"But she's been a damned little shrew, and doesn't deserve me to stay
in for her. There! that's what you get by arguing." He laughed a laugh
of vexation as much at his own ill-temper as at her pertinacity.

"Very well," she said, drawing back.

The light in the room was subdued, for the candles had not yet given
place to the incandescent glare. He cast a glance at her face, but she
had withdrawn to the shadow.

"Well," he hesitated, "night-night, in case you don't sit up."

"Good night," she replied. "I shan't sit up."

"You might make up the fire before you go to bed, though, there's a
dear girl."

She did not answer, and he went out; she followed him to the doorway,
and stood there watching him put on his overcoat and muffler again.
His pipe was between his teeth; he removed it for a second to kiss her
cheek hastily, then restored it. With a hysterical anger held
feverishly in check, she thought that male imperturbability, male
selfishness, were incredible.

"Night-night!" he said again, going out. "I'll bring you a programme."

The door shut. She was alone. She advanced passionately upon the
strewn dinner-table; it waited there to be cleared by the work of her
hands, as imperturbable as he.

She