She worked at it more and
more continuously, and irritably, and nervously, as the days went by
and her fifty-two francs dwindled to five.

She lay awake, planning long and elaborate conversations that would
imperceptibly lead him up to where he must see what she needed without
seeing that he had been led. She carried out these ingenious
conversations. She led him along, he docilely and unsuspectingly
following. She brought him up to where it seemed to her impossible for
any human being endowed with the ordinary faculties to fail to see what
was so plainly in view. All in vain. General William Siddall gazed
placidly--and saw nothing.

Several days of these failures, and with her funds reduced to a
fifty-centime piece and a two-sous copper she made a frontal attack.
When they went forth for the day's shopping she left her gold bag
behind. After an hour or so she said:

"I've got to go to the Galleries Lafayette for some little things. I
shan't ask you to sacrifice yourself. I know you hate those stuffy,
smelly big shops."

"Very well," said he. "I'll use the time in a call on my bankers."

As they were about to separate, she taking the motor and he walking,
she made a face of charming dismay and said: "How provoking! I've
left my bag at the hotel."

Instead of the expected prompt offer of money he said, "It'll only take
you a minute or so to drive there."

"But it's out of the way," she replied. "I'll need only a hundred
francs or so."

Said he: "I've an account at the Bon Marche. Go there and have the
things charged. It's much the best big shop in Paris."

"Very well," was all she could trust herself to say. She concealed her
anger beneath a careless smile and drove away. How dense he was! Could
anything be more exasperating--or more disagreeable? What SHOULD she
do? The situation was intolerable; yet how could it be ended, except
by a humiliating direct request for money? She wondered how young
wives habitually dealt with this problem, when they happened to marry
husbands so negligent, not to say underbred, as to cause them the
awkwardness and the shame. There followed several days during which
the money idea was an obsession, nagging and grinning at her every
instant. The sight of money gave her a peculiar itching sensation.
When the little general paid for anything--always drawing out a great
sheaf of bank notes in doing it--she flushed hot and cold, her glance
fell guiltily and sought