Sarah seemed
delighted, and tapped the tiles of the floor with the tip of her
sunshade, and gazed splendidly over the room.

"And there are your books there, I see!" she said, in her positive, calm
voice, pointing to a few hundred books that were stacked in a corner.
"How lovely! You remember you promised to lend me that book of
Thoreau's--what did you call it?--and you never did!"

"Next time you come I'll find it for you," said Helen.

Next time she came! This kind of visit would occur frequently, then!
They were talking just as if James Ollerenshaw had been in Timbuctoo,
instead of by the mantelpiece, when Sally suddenly turned on him.

"It must be very nice for you to have Nell like this!" She addressed him
with a glowing smile.

They had never been introduced! A week ago they had passed each other in
St. Luke's-square without a sign. Of the Swetnam family, James "knew"
the father alone, and him slightly. What chiefly impressed him in Sarah
was her nerve. He said nothing; he was tongue-tied.

"It's a great change for you," proceeded Sarah.

"Ay," he agreed; "it's that."

CHAPTER X

A CALL

The next moment the two fluffy women had decided, without in the least
consulting James, that they would ascend to Helen's bedroom to look at a
hat which, James was surprised to learn, Helen had seen in Brunt's
window that morning and had bought on the spot. No wonder she had been
in a hurry to go marketing; no wonder she had spent "some" of his
ten-pound note! He had seen hats in Brunt's marked as high as two
guineas; but he had not dreamt that such hats would ever enter his
house. While he had been labouring, collecting his rents and arranging
for repairs, throughout the length and the breadth of Bursley and
Turnhill, she, under pretence of marketing, had been flinging away
ten-pound notes at Brunt's. The whole business was fantastic, simply and
madly fantastic; so fantastic that he had not yet quite grasped the
reality of it! The whole business was unheard of. He saw, with all the
clearness of his masculine intellect, that it must cease. The force with
which he decided within himself that it must cease--and
instanter!--bordered upon the hysterical. As he had said, plaintively,
he was an oldish man. His habits, his manners, and his notions,
especially his notions about money, were fixed and set like plaster of
Paris in a mould. Helen's conduct was nothing less than dangerous. It
might bring him to a sudden