“Do you know what I’m going to do this very day as ever is?” he asked.

“What is it?”

“I’m going to buy you a bike.  I’ve had enough of that old crock I borrowed for you.  I shall return it and come back with a new ’un.  And I know the precise bike that I shall come back with.  It’s at Bostock’s at Hanbridge.  They’ve just opened a new cycle department.”

“Oh, Louis!” she protested.

His scheme for spending money on her flattered her.  But nevertheless it was a scheme for spending money.  Two hundred and twenty-five pounds had dropped into his lap, and he must needs begin instantly to dissipate it.  He could not keep it.  That was Louis!  She refused to see that the purchase of a bicycle was the logical consequence of her lessons.  She desired to believe that by some miracle at some future date she could possess a bicycle without a bicycle being bought—­and in the meantime was there not the borrowed machine?

Suddenly she yawned.

“Didn’t you sleep well?” he demanded.

“Not very.”

“Oh!”

She could almost see into the interior of his brain, where he was persuading himself that fatigue alone was the explanation of her peculiar demeanour, and rejoicing that the mystery was, after all, neither a mystery nor sinister.

“I say,” he began between two puffs of a cigarette after breakfast, “I shall send back half of that money to Julian.  I’ll send the notes by registered post.”

“Shall you?”

“Yes.  Don’t you think he’ll keep them?”

“Supposing I was to take them over to him myself—­and insist?” she suggested.

“It’s a notion.  When?”

“Well, on Saturday afternoon.  He’ll be at home probably then.”

“All right,” Louis agreed.  “I’ll give you the money later on.”

Nothing more was said as to the Julian episode.  It seemed that husband and wife were equally determined not to discuss it merely for the sake of discussing it.

Shortly after half-past eight Louis was preparing the borrowed bicycle and his own in the back yard.

“I shall ride mine and tow the crock,” said he, looking up at Rachel as he screwed a valve.  She had come into the yard in order to show a polite curiosity in his doings.

“Isn’t it dangerous?”

“Are you dangerous?” he laughed.

“But when shall you go?”

“Now.”

“Shan’t you be late at the works?”

“Well, if I’m late at the beautiful works I shall be late at the beautiful works.  Those who don’t like it will have to lump it.”

Once more, it was the consciousness of a loose, entirely available two hundred and twenty-five pounds that was making him restive under the yoke of regular employment.  For a row of pins, that morning, he would have given Jim Horrocleave a week’s notice, or even the amount of a week’s wages in lieu of notice!  Rachel sighed, but within herself.