Alma was gazing at the fire, and seemed to give only a divided attention to what her husband said.  Her eyes grew wide; their vision, certainly, was of nothing that disturbed or disheartened her.

’You have given me two things to think about, Harvey.  Will you reflect on the one that I suggested?’

‘Then you meant it seriously?’

’I meant that I should like to have your serious opinion about it.  Only we won’t talk now.  I am very tired, and you, I’m sure, oughtn’t to sit late with your bad throat.  I promise to consider both the things you mentioned.’

She held her hands to him charmingly, and kissed his cheek as she said goodnight.

Harvey lingered for another hour, and —­ of all people in the world —­ somehow found himself thinking of Buncombe.  Buncombe, his landlord in the big dirty house by Royal Oak.  What had become of Buncombe?  It would be amusing, some day to look at the old house and see if Buncombe still lived there.

CHAPTER 7

They never talked about money.  Alma took it for granted that Harvey would not allow their expenditure to outrun his income, and therewith kept her mind at rest.  Rolfe had not thought it necessary to mention that he derived about three hundred pounds from debenture stock which was redeemable, and that the date of redemption fell early in this present year, 1891.  He himself had all along scarcely regarded the matter.  When the stock became his, 1891 seemed very remote; and on settling in North Wales he felt financially so secure that the question of reinvestment might well be left for consideration till it was pressed upon him.

As now it was.  He could no longer disregard percentages; he wanted every penny that his capital would yield.  Before marriage he would have paid little heed to the fact that his canal shares (an investment which he had looked upon as part of the eternal order of things) showed an inclination to lose slightly in value; now it troubled him day and night.  As for the debenture stock, he might, if he chose, ‘convert’ it without withdrawal, but that meant a lower dividend, which was hardly to be thought of.  Whither should he turn for a security at once sound and remunerative?  He began to read the money article in his daily paper, which hitherto he had passed over as if it did not exist, or turned from with contemptuous impatience.  He picked up financial newspapers at railway bookstalls, and in private struggled to comprehend their jargon, taking care that they never fell under his wife’s eyes.  At the Metropolitan Club —­ of which he had resumed membership, after thinking that he would never again enter clubland —­ he talked with men who were at home in City matters, and indirectly tried to get hints from them.  He felt like one who meddles with something forbidden —­ who pries, shamefaced, into the secrets of an odious vice.  To study the money-market gave him a headache.  He had to go for a country walk, to bathe and change his clothes, before he was at ease again.