Dale going out, through the long passage to the hall, felt momentarily depressed by a sense of humiliating failure in the midst of his apparent success.  If only he could have fought them and beaten them alone, as a strong man fighting unaided, instead of being pulled through the battle by that veinous, blotchy, ringed hand!  However, he promptly tried to banish all such vague discomfort from his mind.

All of it was gone when he got back to the lodging-house, and found his wife established in their new room.

VI

“The Acadia Theater!  So be it.  They’re all one to me.”

Mavis had chosen this famous music hall because, as she explained, Chirgwin was performing at it, and her aunt had always said that Chirgwin was the most excruciatingly funny of all music-hall artists.

“So be it.  Half a minute, though.”  Dale counting his money, dolefully discovered that it had run very low indeed.  “I begin to think we shall have to cut down our treat a bit.”

But Mavis swept away all difficulties.  She had brought money—­her very own money—­her little emergency hoard; and opening her handbag, and tumbling inside it, she produced a five-pound note, and smilingly put it on the dressing-table.

“Hulloa!  There’s more where that comes from.”  His quick ear had caught the rustling sound inside the handbag.  “There’s other notes in there, old lady;” and, laughing, he tried to snatch the bag from her.  “How much?  Here’s a miser, and no mistake.”

“Never you mind how much your miser’s got.”  Her lips were smiling, her eyes shining, and with a happy laugh she sprang away from him.  “Now, no nonsense.  Take me out, and make a fuss of me.”

For a moment he stood still, admiring her.  She was dressed in her very best Sunday clothes, and, to his eye at least, she looked quite entrancingly nice.  Her straw hat was full of artificial roses that any one might have sworn were real; her unbuttoned jacket disclosed the delicate finery of a muslin blouse; her long skirt, held up so gracefully by the unoccupied hand, was made of veritable silk.  She just looked tip-top—­a picture—­to the full as much a lady as the young dames he had been lately observing; and yet, wonder of wonders, she was his property.

“By Jupiter, I must have another hug—­and then off we go.”

“No,” she said archly, and yet decidedly.  “No more kisses till bedtime.  I’m all ready to show myself to company, and I don’t wish to be rumpled.”

They rode like a gentleman and a lady in a hansom cab; they dined like a duke and a duchess at the Criterion restaurant; and they were both as happy and light-hearted as schoolboys on the first day of their holidays.  Like children they made silly little jokes which would have been jokes to no one but themselves.  He caused immoderate laughter in her by assuming the airs of a man about town, by affecting a profound