beneath them there were cut flowers.  He never wondered how Marie managed to stretch that weekly thirty-two and sixpence to cover the cost of a third baby, occasional new candle-shades and perpetual flowers.  It was better not to inquire.  Inquiry raised ideas and suggestions and requests.  He could not afford to inquire.  It struck him vaguely this evening, as he stood looking out somewhere beyond the dining-room and whistling his happy tune, that everything was very fairly comfortable.

His wife came in with a big tray and arranged the dinner temptingly upon the table.  When it was all ready he drew up his chair and sat down with an air of appetite.  And he talked; it was as if he exerted himself to interest her and to be interested, himself, in all that she said.  He listened and commented upon her day’s shopping, asked where she lunched, heard about her visit to Julia at a chic club, and observed lightly how fashionable she was getting.

He said she looked tired to-night, and must take care of herself.

He was going to stay at home this evening, to sit by the fire and talk to her; his manner was almost loverlike, and her heart thrilled to it as she had not thought it could thrill again.  She looked at him with eyes in which her wonder showed; and in her quietened body her passion seemed to raise its subdued head again, sweet and strong and young.

“I shan’t be two minutes clearing away,” she said, when they rose.  She felt no more fatigue, but piled all the things on the big tray and carried it out to the kitchen almost like a feather-weight, and in less than the two minutes she had assigned, she was back again with the coffee things, her feet light and her eyes dreaming.  She drew her chair nearer his before the hearth, and stretched out her hand to him, hungering across the space.  He squeezed and dropped it, and leaned forward, clearing his throat as if he were going to speak words of moment.

He checked himself and obviously said something else.

“Your coffee is good, dear; you do look after me in a simply tophole way.”

His words were like the prelude of a song to her.  She listened for more, with a smile, a real smile, no more wise, but foolish.  It had the foolishness of all love in it, so easily and completely could he give her pain, or pleasure.

He answered the smile with one of constraint.

Feeling in the pocket of his lounge coat, he uttered abruptly: 

“I brought you a few sweets, dear; passed a shop on my way; thought—­”

He handed over a packet of chocolates and sat back with a sigh expressive of satisfaction, while, with a cry of delight and gratitude, she untied the ribbons.

“You are a dear!” she said tremulously.  “I must share them with the children; and this pink ribbon—­pink for a girl, blue for a boy!  It’ll do for baby’s bonnet.  What lovely ribbon, silk all through!”

“Oh, well, they weren’t cheap chocolates,” Osborn observed.