He went on with the filling of his pipe as he spoke, and she was conscious of quick relief.  His words did not seem to ask for an answer, and she made none.

“When are you going to take me to Ritzen?” she asked instead.

“To Ritzen!” He glanced up again in surprise.  “Do you want to go to Ritzen?”

“Or Brennerstadt,” she said, “Whichever is the best shopping centre.”

“Oh!” He began to smile.  “You want to shop, do you?  What do you want to buy?”

She looked at him severely.  “Nothing for myself, I am glad to say.”

“What!  Something for me?” His smile gave him that look—­that boyish look—­which once she had loved so dearly upon Guy’s face.  She felt as if something were pulling at her heart.  She ignored it resolutely.

“You will have to buy it for yourself,” she told him sternly.  “I’ve got nothing to buy it with.  It’s something you ought to have got long ago—­if you had any sense of decency.”

“What on earth is it?” Burke dropped his pipe into his pocket and gave her his full attention.

Sylvia, with a cigarette between her lips, got up to find the matches.  She lighted it very deliberately under his watching eyes, then held out the match to him.  “Light up, and I’ll tell you.”

He took the slender wrist, blew out the match, and held her, facing him.

“Sylvia,” he said.  “I ought to have gone into the money question with you before.  But all I have is yours.  You know that, don’t you?”

She laughed at him through the smoke.  “I know where you keep it anyhow, partner,” she said.  “But I shan’t take any—­so you needn’t be afraid.”

“Afraid!” he said, still holding her.  “But you are to take it.  Understand?  It’s my wish.”

She blew the smoke at him, delicately, through pursed lips.  “Good my lord, I don’t want it.  Couldn’t spend it if I had it.  So now!”

“Then what is it I am to buy?” he said.

Lightly she answered him.  “Oh, you will only do the paying part.  I shall do the choosing—­and the bargaining, if necessary.”

“Well, what is it?” Still he held her, and there was something of insistence, something of possession, in his hold.

Possibly she had never before seemed more desirable to him—­or more elusive.  For she was beginning to realize and to wield her power.  Again she took a whiff from her cigarette, and wafted it at him through laughing lips.

“I want some wool—­good wool—­and a lot of it, to knit some socks—­for you.  Your present things are disgraceful.”

His look changed a little.  His eyes shone through the veil of smoke she threw between them, “I can buy ready-made socks.  I’m not going to let you make them—­or mend them.”

Sylvia’s red lips expressed scorn.  “Ready-made rubbish!  No, sir.  With your permission I prefer to make.  Then perhaps I shall have less mending to do.”