hat it
was she couldn't really say. Only from the first she had had that
feeling in her heart--"He will not be permanent." The joy she had in
his youth and mystery was drenched with the pathos of mutability. Mrs.
Downey rebelled against mutability's decree. "Perhaps," she said, "we
might come to some arrangement."

All night long in her bedroom on the ground-floor, Mrs. Downey lay
awake considering what arrangement could be come to. This was but a
discreet way of stating her previous determination to make any
sacrifice if only she could keep him. The sacrifice which Mrs. Downey
(towards the small hours of the morning) found herself contemplating
amounted to no less than four shillings a week. Occupying his present
bed-sitting room he should remain for twenty-one shillings a week
instead of twenty-five.

Unfortunately, at breakfast the next morning their evil genius
prompted Mr. Spinks and Mr. Soper to display enormous appetites, and
Mrs. Downey, to her everlasting shame, was herself tempted of the
devil. A fall of four shillings a week, serious enough in itself, was
not to be contemplated with gentlemen eating their heads off in that
fashion. It would have to be made up in some way, to be taken out of
somebody or something. She would--yes, she would take it out of them
all round by taking it out of the Dinner. And yet when it came to the
point, Mrs. Downey's soul recoiled from the immorality of this
suggestion. There rose before her, as in a vision, the Dinner of the
future, solid in essentials but docked of its splendour, its character
and its pride. No; that must not be. What the Dinner was now it must
remain as long as there were eight boarders to eat it. If Mrs. Downey
made any sacrifice she must make it pure.

"On the condition," said Mrs. Downey by way of putting a business-like
face on it, "on the condition of his permanence."

But it seemed that twenty-one shillings were more than Mr. Rickman
could afford to pay.

Mrs. Downey spent another restless night, and again towards the small
hours of the morning she decided on a plan. After breakfast she
watched Mr. Soper out of the dining-room, closed the door behind him
with offensive and elaborate precaution, and approached Mr. Rickman
secretly. If he would promise not to tell the other gentlemen, she
would let him have the third floor back for eighteen shillings.

Mr. Rickman stood by the door like one in great haste to be gone. He
could not afford eighteen s