‘Did you dine with the great people on Thursday?’ Nancy asked.

‘Yes, and rather enjoyed it.  There were one or two clever women.’

‘Been anywhere else?’

’An hour at a smoking-concert the other evening.  Pippit, the actor, was there, and recited a piece much better than I ever heard him speak anything on the stage.  They told me he was drunk; very possibly that accounted for it.’

To a number of such details Nancy listened quietly, with bent head.  She had learned to put absolute faith in all that Tarrant told her of his quasi-bachelor life; she suspected no concealment; but the monotony of her own days lay heavy upon her whilst he talked.

‘Won’t you smoke?’ she asked, rising from his knee to fetch the pipe and tobacco-jar kept for him upon a shelf.  Slippers also she brought him, and would have unlaced his muddy boots had Tarrant permitted it.  When he presented a picture of masculine comfort, Nancy, sitting opposite, cautiously approached a subject of which as yet there had been no word between them.

‘Oughtn’t you to get more comfortable lodgings?’

’Oh, I do very well.  I’m accustomed to the place, and I like the situation.’

He had kept his room in Great College Street, though often obliged to scant his meals as the weekly rent-day approached.

’Don’t you think we might make some better—­some more economical arrangement?’

‘How?’

Nancy took courage, and spoke her thoughts.

‘It’s more expensive to live separately than if we were together.’

Tarrant seemed to give the point his impartial consideration.

’H’m—­no, I think not.  Certainly not, with our present arrangements.  And even if it were we pay for your comfort, and my liberty.’

’Couldn’t you have as much liberty if we were living under the same roof?  Of course I know that you couldn’t live out here; it would put a stop to your work at once.  But suppose we moved.  Mary might take a rather larger house—­it needn’t be much larger—­in a part convenient for you.  We should be able to pay her enough to set off against her increased expenses.’

Smoking calmly, Tarrant shook his head.

‘Impracticable.  Do you mean that this place is too dull for you?’

’It isn’t lively, but I wasn’t thinking of the place.  If you lived here, it would be all I should wish.’

’That sounds so prettily from your lips, Nancy, that I’m half ashamed to contradict it.  But the truth is that you can only say such things because we live apart.  Don’t deceive yourself.  With a little more money, this life of ours would be as nearly perfect as married life ever can be.’

Nancy remembered a previous occasion when he spoke to the same purpose.  But it was in the time she did not like to think of, and in spite of herself the recollection troubled her.

‘You must have more variety,’ he added.  ’Next year you shall come into town much oftener—­’