a garden when you had to walk ever so far to the tram? He retorted
that walking was a reason for sitting; and she that if it came to that
they could sit in the house. She wouldn't hear of the old brown house,
nor he of the brand-new villa. He was peculiarly sensitive to his
surroundings.

"The villa," said he, "is a detestable little den."

"It isn't," said she, "it's got a lovely bay window in the drawing
room, and a _dear_ little balcony on the top."

"But there isn't a quiet place in it, dear, where I could write."

"Oh, that's all you're thinking of--"

"Well, there isn't, really. Whereas here" (they were going now through
the little brown house), "there's a jolly big room at the back, where
you can see miles away over the fields towards Harrow."

"Oh, you've got time to look out of the window, have you, though you
_are_ so busy?"

"Never mind the window, let's look at the house. What's wrong with
it?"

"What's wrong with the house? It won't suit the furniture, that's
what's wrong with it."

"You mean the furniture won't suit it?"

"The furniture's chosen and the house isn't. There's no good going
back on that."

"Look here, this is the room I meant." They had climbed to the top of
the little brown house, and Flossie had hardly condescended to glance
through the doors he had opened on their way. He opened one now at the
head of the stairs, and this time she looked in.

"It would make all the difference to me, Floss," he said humbly, "if I
had a place like this when I want to get away to write."

"When you want to get away from me, you mean." Her lips shook; she
looked round her with angry eyes, as if jealous of the place, and all
that he meant to do in it.

It was a large room, with a wide window looking on to the garden and
away across meadows and cornfields to Harrow Hill with its thin church
spire. The window was guarded with iron bars. The wall-paper was
designed in little circles; and in each circle there were figures of
little boys and girls, absurd and gay. So many hundreds of little
figures, and so absurd and gay, that to sit in that room surrounded by
them, to look at them and endeavour to count them, was to go mad. But
those figures fascinated Flossie.

"Oh, Lord, what a beastly wall-paper," said he.

"I think it's sweet," said she. And though she wasn't going to let him
have the house, she was ready to quarrel with him again about the
wall-paper. And then, in the corner by the window