“How lovely!  But what will it mean to you was what I’m asking?”

“The salary is five hundred, as you know.”  And guardedly, for he knew many men who deemed it well to be careful over telling their wives these things, he added:  “With any luck the commission’s more than the salary.”

He left it vague, like that, for safety.

“I do congratulate you, Osborn.”

“Our ship’s really in, at last, you see, old girl.”

“My poor income fades into the background behind yours!”

“Well, yours isn’t so bad for a woman!”

“So I’ve found.  I’ve had clothes, and gone about, and begun to think and read and see good plays again, all on the strength of it.”

She opened a bank-book.  “This is all the accounting for the two hundred you arranged to be paid in to me.  You’ll see I’ve used it legitimately—­none of it’s gone on frippery.  And I’ve paid George’s schooling myself this last six months, and Ann’s wages, as I hadn’t your permission for either.  So you’ll see there’s even a balance left to your credit.”

“Why make a song about my ‘permission’?  You’ve always been a free agent, haven’t you?”

“Won’t you just run your eye over this, now you’re taking hold of the family bank account again?”

To satisfy her he took the book and skimmed over figures rapidly.

“You’ve been a good girl.”

“So glad you think so.”

Osborn smoked on quietly, but his thoughts were turbulent.  She was giving him strange qualms, and he could not quite understand her direction.  That something worked in her head he guessed, but, unwilling to hear of it, he asked no questions.  It was very comfortable by the fire, and when he pitched the account-books away from her and took her hand again, she let it lie in his.

He pressed it.

“Well?” he whispered with a meaning look, wanting response.

It seemed as if she had none to give, kind and sweet as she was to him.

“I’m forgetting,” he said in a few minutes, leaning forward to knock out his pipe, “that I’ve a job to do for you.  I’ll see to that bedstead now, shall I?”

“Why?” she said coldly.  “It is all ready made up for you in the dressing-room.  What do you want to do?”

He stared, bewildered.

“I’m not going to sleep there.”

“Aren’t you?  Then I will.”

He began to see dimly the meaning of her mood; but he was stumbling about in darkness to find her reasons for it.  What reasons could she have for so extraordinary a reply?

“My dear good girl,” he cried sharply, “explain yourself.”

“I don’t know how to, exactly.  But I have liked having my room to myself.  I wish to keep it.”

“You’ve got some nonsense into your head—­”

“It isn’t nonsense.  It’s just fact.  I’ve been without a husband for a year and I’ve found it wonderfully restful.  I can be without him some more.”