Maude looked charmingly mutinous.

’No, Frank, you are not.  I don’t think marriage can be too close.  I believe that every hope, and thought, and aspiration should be in common.  I could never get as near to your heart and soul as I should wish to do.  I want every year to draw me closer and closer, until we really are as nearly the same person as it is possible to be upon earth.’

When you have to surrender, it is well to do so gracefully.  Frank stooped down and kissed his wife’s hand, and apologised.  ’The wisdom of the heart is greater than the wisdom of the brain,’ said he.  But the love of man comes from the brain, far more than the love of woman, and so it is that there will always be some points upon which they will never quite see alike.

‘Then we scratch out that item.’

’No, dear.  ’Put “The cord which is held tight is the easiest to snap.”  That will be all right.  The cord of which I speak is never held at all.  The moment it is necessary to hold it, it is of no value.  It must be voluntary, natural, unavoidable.’

So Frank amended his aphorism.

‘Anything more, dear?’

‘Yes, I have thought of one other,’ said she.  ’It is that if ever you had to find fault with me about anything, it should be when we are alone.’

’And the same in your case with me.  That is excellent.  What can be more vulgar and degrading than a public difference of opinion?  People do it half in fun sometimes, but it is wrong all the same.  Duly entered upon the minutes.  Anything else?’

‘Only material things.’

’Yes, but they count also.  Now, in the matter of money, I feel that every husband should allow his wife a yearly sum of her own, to be paid over to her, and kept by her, so that she may make her own arrangements for herself.  It is degrading to a woman to have to apply to her husband every time she wants a sovereign.  On the other hand, if the wife has any money, she should have the spending of it.  If she chooses to spend part of it in helping the establishment, that is all right, but I am sure that she should have her own separate account, and her own control of it.’

’If a woman really loves a man, Frank, how can she grudge him everything she has?  If my little income would take one worry from your mind, what a joy it would be to me to feel that you were using it!’

’Yes, but the man has his self-respect to think of.  In a great crisis one might fall back upon one’s wife—­since our interests are the same, but only that could justify it.  So much for the wife’s money.  Now for the question of housekeeping.’

‘That terrible question!’

’It is only hard because people try to do so much upon a little.  Why should they try to do so much?  The best pleasures of life are absolutely inexpensive.  Books, music, pleasant intimate evenings, the walk among the heather, the delightful routine of domestic life, my cricket and my golf—­these things cost very little.’