A slight flush stole into Marie’s cheeks.

“Oh, Osborn,” she said, “but—­”

“What?”

“Can you afford it?”

“Blow ’afford’!” said Osborn largely, placing the half-crowns before her, “we must do absolutely anything to prevent you from getting wretched.”

She took the money up, half hesitating.  She read the wistfulness in his face, but she felt rather wistful too.

“Thank you, Osborn,” she murmured; “it’ll be lovely.  Julia’s sure to come.  But, Osborn—­”

“What?”

“Some evening you’ll take me yourself, won’t you?”

“Rather!”

“Shall I save this till to-morrow?”

“No, no!” he cried.  “To-day’s when you want a tonic, not to-morrow.  Go and get your tonic, Mrs. Osborn.  Go and enjoy yourself!”

He was restored to content.

“I must go,” he said, jumping up.  “Let me kiss you.  We’re friends, aren’t we, darling?  You’ll try not to hate the work so very much?  When I get my rise it will make a lot of difference.”

Then they clung together, kissing and whispering, and the cream walls and the golden-brown curtains were as beautiful to them as ever.

“Be a happy girl!” he cried, before he shut the front door.

“I am!” she called back, and he was gone.

She went down gaily, in spite of her weariness, and used the hall-porter’s telephone to ring up Julia.  Miss Winter would come and was very pleased, thank you.  Marie went upstairs again, the ascent making her breathless.

The stairs and the landings were grey stone, uncarpeted, for this was the cheapest block of flats in the road.  Oh, money, money!  Accursed, lovable stuff!

Marie sat down, panting, in her kitchen.  A mist rose before her eyes; she shut them and took a long breath; her head was light and dizzy.  She began to be afraid.

An angel, in the guise of Mrs. Amber, knocked upon the front door.  Marie dragged along the corridor, and could have wept once more for sheer relief at seeing so irreplaceable, so peculiarly comforting a person as her own mother upon the threshold.  But she restrained herself with a great effort from the relief.

“Well, duck,” said Mrs. Amber cheerfully, with that wise eye upon her girl’s face, “I was out and I just thought I’d run in and see how you were.  You’re not too busy for me, love?  Ah, you’ve overdone it and you look very pale.”

She sat in Osborn’s easychair in the dining-room.  She was stout and solid, a comforting rock upon which the waves of trouble might fret and break in vain, for she had weathered her storms long ago.  But Marie refrained from going to her and laying her head in her lap and crying like a little girl.  She was twenty-five, married and worldly, with great things upon her shoulders.  Instead of going to that true rock of ages, the mother, for shelter she sat down opposite, composedly, in the companion chair, and answered: