and he couldn't deny it. However, sir, if you'll be so good as to let
me try what I can do by myself--"

"I tell you that'll be all right," he stopped her.

Braiding, his mainstay, was irrevocably gone. He realised that, and it
was a severe blow. He must accept it. As for Mrs. Braiding managing,
she would manage in a kind of way, but the risks to Regency furniture
and china would be grave. She did not understand Regency furniture
and china as Braiding did; no woman could. Braiding had been as much a
"find" as the dome bed or the unique bookcase which bore the names of
"Homer" and "Virgil" in bronze characters on its outer wings.
Also, G.J. had a hundred little ways about neckties and about
trouser-stretching which he, G.J., would have to teach Mrs. Braiding.
Still the war ...

When she was gone he stood up and brushed the crumbs from his
dressing-gown, and emitted a short, harsh laugh. He was laughing at
himself. Regency furniture and china! Neckties! Trouser-stretching! In
the next room was a youngish woman whose minstrel boy to the war had
gone--gone, though he might be only in the next street! And had she
said a word about her feelings as a wife? Not a word! But dozens
of words about the inconvenience to the god-like employer! She had
apologised to him because Braiding had departed to save the Empire
without first asking his permission. It was not merely astounding--it
flabbergasted. He had always felt that there was something
fundamentally wrong in the social fabric, and he had long had a
preoccupation to the effect that it was his business, his, to take a
share in finding out what was wrong and in discovering and applying a
cure. This preoccupation had worried him, scarcely perceptibly, like
the delicate oncoming of neuralgia. There must be something wrong when
a member of one class would behave to a member of another class as
Mrs. Braiding behaved to him--without protest from him.

"Mrs. Braiding!" he called out.

"Yes, sir." She almost ran back into the drawing-room.

"When shall you be seeing your husband?" At least he would remind her
that she had a husband.

"I haven't an idea, sir."

"Well, when you do, tell him that I want to speak to him; and you can
tell him I shall pay you half his wages in addition to your own."

Her gratitude filled him with secret fury.

He said to himself:

"Futile--these grand gestures about wages."

Chapter 8

BOOTS

In the very small hall G.J. gazed at