‘Just the same,’ Crewe replied at once, though with less than his usual directness; the question seemed to make him meditative.  ’Just the same.  Every man looks at it in his own way, of course.  I’m not the sort of chap to knuckle under to my wife; and there isn’t one woman in a thousand, if she gave her husband a start, could help reminding him of it.  It’s the wrong way about.  Let women be as independent as they like as long as they’re not married.  I never think the worse of them, whatever they do that’s honest.  But a wife must play second fiddle, and think her husband a small god almighty —­that’s my way of looking at the question.’

Beatrice laughed scornfully.

‘All right.  We shall see.—­When do you start business?’

‘This side Christmas.  End of September, perhaps.’

‘You think to snatch a good deal from B. & F., I daresay?’

Crewe nodded and smiled.

‘Then you’ll look after this affair for me?’ said Beatrice, with a return to the tone of strict business.

’Without loss of time.  You shall be advised of progress.  Of course I must debit you with exes.’

‘All right.  Mind you charge for all the penny stamps.’

‘Every one—­don’t you forget it.’

He stood up, tilted forward on his toes, and stretched himself.

’I’ll be trotting homewards.  It’ll be time for by-by when I get to Kennington.’

CHAPTER 3

Nancy was undisturbed by the promotion of Mary Woodruff.  A short time ago it would have offended her; she would have thought her dignity, her social prospects, imperilled.  She was now careless on that score, and felt it a relief to cast off the show of domestic authority.  Henceforth her position would be like that of Horace.  All she now desired was perfect freedom from responsibility,—­to be, as it were, a mere lodger in the house, to come and go unquestioned and unrestrained by duties.

Thus, by aid of circumstance, had she put herself into complete accord with the spirit of her time.  Abundant privilege; no obligation.  A reference of all things to her sovereign will and pleasure.  Withal, a defiant rather than a hopeful mood; resentment of the undisguisable fact that her will was sovereign only in a poor little sphere which she would gladly have transcended.

Now-a-days she never went in the direction of Champion Hill, formerly her favourite walk.  If Jessica Morgan spoke of her acquaintances there, she turned abruptly to another subject.  She thought of the place as an abode of arrogance and snobbery.  She recalled with malicious satisfaction her ill-mannered remark to Lionel Tarrant.  Let him think of her as he would; at all events he could no longer imagine her overawed by his social prestige.  The probability was that she had hurt him in a sensitive spot; it might be hoped that the wound would rankle for a long time.