“Rot!” he exploded at last.  “I said you were a woman, and by all the gods you are!  Give me some more food.”

He was aware of a very peculiar and unprecedented thrill.  He hated to credit Eve’s absurd insinuation, but...!  And Eve looked at him superiorly, triumphant, sure of him, sure of her everlasting power over him!  Yet she was not romantic, and her plump person did not in the least symbolise romance.

“I’ve a piece of news for you,” he said, after a pause.  “After to-night I’ve done with women and idleness.  I’m going into business.  I’ve bought half of that paper-making concern from your singular son, and I’m going to put it on its legs.  I know nothing about paper-making, and I can only hope that the London office is not as dirty and untidy as the works.  I’d no idea what works were.  The whole thing will be a dreadful worry, and I shall probably make a horrid mess of it, but Charlie seems to think I shan’t.”

“But why—­what’s come over you, Arthur?  Surely we’ve got enough money.  What has come over you?  I never could make you out and I never shall.”

“Nothing!  Nothing!” said he.  “Only I’ve got a sort of idea that some one Ought to be economic and productive.  It may kill me, but I’ll die producing, anyhow.”

He waited for her to begin upbraiding him for capricious folly and expatiating upon the fragility of his health.  But you never know where you are with an Eve.  Eves have the most disconcerting gleams of insight.  She said: 

“I’m rather glad.  I was getting anxious about you.”