like it?"

"Well--I should like to know where I am."

"But--darling--It's _so_ much better not to."

He sighed. So did Jinny.

"I can see," she said, "what I've done. I've crumpled _all_ the
rose-leaves, and you'll never be able to lie on them any more."

Then she had another idea.

"Hugh! It's just occurred to me. Talk of saving! I've been saving all
the time like fury. I save you Gertrude's salary."

At this Brodrick became angry, as Jane might have seen, only she was too
entirely taken up with her discovery to look at him.

"Here I have been working for months, trying how not to be extravagant,
and thinking how incompetent I am and how much more advantageous it
would have been for you to have married Gertrude. And I come lots
cheaper. I really do. Wasn't it funny of us never to have thought of it
before?"

He was very angry, but he had to smile. Then by way of correction he
reminded her that the servants were getting rather slack. Didn't she
think it was about time to haul them up?

She didn't. She didn't like the poor things to feel that they were
driven. She liked to see happy faces all around her.

"But they're so unpunctual--those faces," Brodrick said. And while they
_were_ on the subject there was the clock. The clock that Gertrude
always used to wind, that Brodrick sometimes forgot to wind, but that
Jinny never by any chance wound at all.

"I'm happier," said Jane, "when it's not wound."

"But why----" His face was one vast amazement.

"Because," she said, "it chimes. And it strikes the quarters."

He had thought that was the great merit of his incomparable clock.

She seemed incorrigible. Then, miraculously, for two months all went
well, really well.

It was not for nothing that Hambleby sold and was selling. The weekly
deficit continued, appalling, palpable even to Jane; but she made it up
secretly. Secretly, she seemed to save.

But Brodrick found that out and stopped it. Jane was not allowed, and
she knew it, to use her own income for the house or for anything else
but herself and her people. It wasn't for that he had married her.
Besides, he objected to her method. It was too expensive.

Jane was disposed to argue the matter.

"Don't you see, dear, that it's the price of peace? Peace is the most
expensive thing on this earth--any stupid politician will tell you that.
If you won't pay for peace, what will you pay for?"

"My dear child, there used to be more peace and considerable