It was the matter of a new dress which was now indeed running in her mind.  She took up Lady Dunstable’s letter, and read it pensively through again.

“You can accept for yourself, Arthur, of course,” she said, looking up.  “But I can’t possibly go.”

Meadows protested loudly.

“You have no excuse at all!” he declared hotly.  “Lady Dunstable has given us a month’s notice.  You can’t get out of it.  Do you want me to be known as a man who accepts smart invitations without his wife?  There is no more caddish creature in the world.”

Doris could not help smiling upon him.  But her mouth was none the less determined.

“I haven’t got a single frock that’s fit for Crosby Ledgers.  And I’m not going on tick for a new one!”

“I never heard anything so absurd!  Shan’t we have more money in a few weeks than we’ve had for years?”

“I dare say.  It’s all wanted.  Besides, I have my work to finish.”

“My dear Doris!”

A slight red mounted in Doris’s cheeks.

“Oh, you may be as scornful as you like!  But ten pounds is ten pounds, and I like keeping engagements.”

The “work” in question meant illustrations for a children’s book.  Doris had accepted the commission with eagerness, and had been going regularly to the Campden Hill studio of an Academician—­her mother’s brother—­who was glad to supply her with some of the “properties” she wanted for her drawings.

“I shall soon not allow you to do anything of the kind,” said Meadows with decision.

“On the contrary!  I shall always take paid work when I can get it,” was the firm reply—­“unless—­”

“Unless what?”

“You know,” she said quietly.  Meadows was silent a moment, then reached out for her hand, which she gave him.  They had no children; and, as he well knew, Doris pined for them.  The look in her eyes when she nursed her friends’ babies had often hurt him.  But after all, why despair?  It was only four years from their wedding day.

But he was not going to be beaten in the matter of Crosby Ledgers.  They had a long and heated discussion, at the end of which Doris surrendered.

“Very well!  I shall have to spend a week in doing up my old black gown, and it will be a botch at the end of it.  But—­nothing—­will induce me—­to get a new one!”

She delivered this ultimatum with her hands behind her, a defeated, but still resolute young person.  Meadows, having won the main battle, left the rest to Providence, and went off to his “den” to read all his letters through once more—­agreeable task!—­and to write a note of acceptance to the Home Secretary, who had asked him to luncheon.  Doris was not included in the invitation.  “But anybody may ask a husband—­or a wife—­to lunch, separately.  That’s understood.  I shan’t do it often, however—­that I can tell them!” And justified by this Spartan temper as to the future, he wrote a charming note, accepting the delights of the present, so full of epigram that the Cabinet Minister to whom it was addressed had no sooner read it than he consigned it instanter to his wife’s collection of autographs.