She attended to his cold, and telephoned to the works for a clerk to come up, and she refrained from telling Stephen that he must have been very careless while in London, to catch a cold like that.  Her self-denial in this respect surprised Stephen, but he put it down to the beneficent influence of Christmas and the Venetian vases.

Bostock’s pair-horse van arrived before the garden gate earlier than her worse fears had anticipated, and Bostock’s men were evidently in a tremendous hurry that morning.  In quite an abnormally small number of seconds the wooden case containing the fragile music-stool was lying in the inner hall, waiting to be unpacked.  Having signed the delivery-book Vera stood staring at the accusatory package.  Stephen was lounging over the dining-room fire, perhaps dozing.  She would have the thing swiftly transported up-stairs and hidden in an attic for a time.

But just then Stephen popped out of the dining-room.  Stephen’s masculine curiosity had been aroused by the advent of Bostock’s van.  He had observed the incoming of the package from the window, and he had ventured to the hall to inspect it.  The event had roused him wonderfully from the heavy torpor which a cold induces.  He wore a dressing-gown, the pockets of which bulged with handkerchiefs.

‘You oughtn’t to be out here, Stephen,’ said his wife.

‘Nonsense!’ he said.  ’Why, upon my soul, this steam heat is warmer than the dining-room fire.’  Vera, silenced by the voice of truth, could not reply.

Stephen bent his great height to inspect the package.  It was an appetizing Christmas package; straw escaped from between its ribs, and it had an air of being filled with something at once large and delicate.

‘Oh!’ observed Stephen, humorously.  ’Ah!  So this is it, is it?  Ah!  Oh!  Very good!’

And he walked round it.

How on earth had he learnt that she had bought it?  She had not mentioned the purchase to Mr Woodruff.

‘Yes, Stephen,’ she said timidly.  ‘That’s it, and I hope—­’

‘It ought to hold a tidy few cigars, that ought,’ remarked Stephen complacently.

He took it for the cigar-cabinet!

She paused, struck.  She had to make up her mind in an instant.

‘Oh yes,’ she murmured.

‘A thousand?’

‘Yes, a thousand,’ she said.

‘I thought so,’ murmured Stephen.  ’I mustn’t kiss you, because I’ve got a cold,’ said he.  ’But, all the same I’m awfully obliged, Vera.  Suppose we have it opened now, eh?  Then we could decide where it is to go, and I could put my cigars in it.’

‘Oh no,’ she protested.  ’Oh no, Stephen!  That’s not fair!  It mustn’t be opened before Christmas morning.’

‘But I gave you my vases yesterday.’

‘That’s different,’ she said.  ‘Christmas is Christmas.’  ’Oh, very well,’ he yielded.  ‘That’s all right, my dear.’

Then he began to sniff.