[Illustration:  MARRIED—­THOUGH SECRETLY ENEMIES.]

“That’s the toughest nut I’ve ever been set to crack,” he said at length, pointing his pipestem after the vanished Hornby.  “Why on earth did you give him a letter to me?”

“He asked me to.  I couldn’t very well say no.”

“I can’t make out what people are up to in the old country.  They think that if a man is too big a rotter to do anything at all in England, they’ve only got to send him out here and he’ll make a fortune.”

“He may improve.”

“I hope so.  Look here, Nora, you’ve thoroughly upset Gertie.”

“She’s very easily upset, isn’t she?”

“It’s only since you came that things haven’t gone right.  We never used to have scenes.”

“So you blame me.  I came prepared to like her and help her.  She met all my advances with suspicion.”

“She thinks yon look down on her.  You ought to remember that she never had your opportunities.  She’s earned her own living from the time she was thirteen.  You can’t expect in her the refinements of a woman who’s led the protected life you have.”

“Now, Eddie, I haven’t said a word that could be turned into the least suggestion of disapproval of anything she did.”

“My dear, your whole manner has expressed disapproval.  You won’t do things in the way we do them.  After all, the way you lived in Tunbridge Wells isn’t the only way people can live.  Our ways suit us, and when you live amongst us you must adopt them.”

“She’s never given me a chance to learn them,” said Nora obstinately.  “She treated me with suspicion and enmity the very first day I came here.  When she sneered at me because I talked of a station instead of a depot, of course I went on talking of a station.  What do you think I’m made of?  Because I prefer to drink water with my meals instead of your strong tea, she says I’m putting on airs.”

Marsh made a pleading gesture.

“Why can’t you humor her?  You see, you’ve got to take the blame for all the English people who came here in the past and were lazy, worthless and supercilious.  They called us Colonials and turned up their noses at us.  What do you expect us to do?—­say, ‘Thank you very much, sir.’  ’We know we’re not worthy to black your boots.’  ’Don’t bother to work, it’ll be a pleasure for us to give you money’?  It’s no good blinking the fact.  There was a great prejudice against the English.  But it’s giving way now, and every sensible man and woman who comes out can do something to destroy it.”

“All I can say,” said Nora, going over to the stove to change her iron, “is if you’re tired of having me here, I can go back to Winnipeg.  I shan’t have any difficulty in finding something to do.”

“Good Lord, I don’t want you to go.  I like having you here.  It’s—­it’s company for Gertie.  And jobs aren’t so easy to find as you think, especially now the winter’s coming on; everyone wants a job in the city.”