and the curative effect of fine clothes on health.  True, he knew himself to be cured, but if nature had chosen to cure him too quickly, that was not his fault....  He heard his wife talking to Machin in the bedroom, and Machin talking to his wife; and the servant’s voice was as joyous and as worried as if she herself, and not Eve, were about to give a little dinner at the Grand Babylon.  Queer!  Queer!  The phrase ‘a quarter of a million’ glinted and flashed in the circumambient air.  But it was almost a meaningless phrase.  He was like a sort of super-savage and could not count beyond a hundred thousand.  And, quite unphilosophical, he forgot that the ecstasy produced by a hundred thousand had passed in a few days, and took for granted that the ecstasy produced by two hundred and fifty thousand would endure for ever.

“Take that thing off, please,” he commanded his wife when he returned to the bedroom in full array.  She was by no means complete, but she had achieved some progress, and was trying the effect of her garnet necklace.

“But it’s the best I’ve got,” said she.

“No, it isn’t,” he flatly contradicted her, and opened the case so newly purchased.

“Arthur!” she gasped, spellbound, entranced, enchanted.

“That’s my name.”

“Pearls!  But—­but—­this must have cost thousands!”

“And what if it did?” he enquired placidly, clasping the thing with much delicacy round her neck.  His own pleasure was intense, and yet he severely blamed himself.  Indeed he called himself a criminal.  Scarcely could he meet her gaze when she put her hands on his shoulders, after a long gazing into the mirror.  And when she kissed him and said with frenzy that he was a dear and a madman, he privately agreed with her.  She ran to the door.

“Where are you going?”

“I must show Sissie.”

“Wait a moment, child.  Do you know why I’ve bought that necklace?  Because the affair with Spinner has come off.”  He then gave her the figures.

She observed, not unduly moved: 

“But I knew that would be all right.”

“How did you know?”

“Because you’re so clever.  You always get the best of everybody.”

He realised afresh that she was a highly disturbing woman.  She uttered highly disturbing verdicts without thought and without warning.  You never knew what she would say.

“I think,” he remarked, calmly pretending that she had said something quite obvious, “that it would be as well for us not to breathe one word to anybody at all about this new windfall.”

She eagerly agreed.

“But we must really begin to spend—­I mean spend regularly.”

“Yes, of course,” he admitted.

“Otherwise it would be absurd, wouldn’t it?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Arthur.”

“Yes.”

“How much will it be—­in income?”

“Well, I’m not going in for any more flutters.  No!  I’ve done absolutely with all speculating idiocies.  Providence has watched over us.  I take the hint.  Therefore my investments will all have to be entirely safe and sound.  No fancy rates of interest.  I should say that by the time old Paul’s fixed up my investments we shall have a bit over four hundred pounds a week coming in—­if that’s any guide to you.”