, if I lost that? I will give up dealing with Theodore, if
you like--though it will be a hard trial, after she has worked for me
so many years, and has studied my style and knows exactly what suits
me. I will dress ever so plainly, and even have my gowns made by a
Southampton dressmaker, though that will be too dreadful. You will
hardly recognise me. But I will do anything--anything, Conrad, rather
than hear you speak so cruelly."

She went over to him and laid her hand tremulously on his shoulder, and
looked down at him with piteous, pleading eyes. No Circassian slave,
afraid of bowstring and sack, could have entreated her master's
clemency with deeper self-abasement.

Even Conrad Winstanley's hard nature was touched by the piteousness of
her look and tone. He took the hand gently and raised it to his lips.

"I don't mean to be cruel, Pamela," he said. "I only want you to face
the truth, and to understand your future position. It is your own money
you are squandering, and you have a right to waste it, if it pleases
you to do so. But it is a little hard for a man who has laboured and
schemed for a given result, suddenly to find himself out in his
calculations by so much as thirteen hundred and sixty-four pounds. Let
us say no more about it, my dear. Here is the bill, and it must be
paid. We have only to consider the items, and see if the prices are
reasonable."

And then the Captain, with bent brow and serious aspect, began to read
the lengthy record of an English lady's folly. Most of the items he
passed over in silence, or with only a sigh, keeping his wife by his
side, looking over his shoulder.

"Point out anything that is wrong," he said; but as yet Mrs. Winstanley
had found no error in the bill.

Sometimes there came an item which moved the Captain to speech. "A
dinner-dress, _pain brule_ brocade, mixed _poult de soie_, _manteau de
cour_, lined ivory satin, trimmed with hand-worked embroidery of wild
flowers on Brussels net, sixty-three pounds."

"What in the name of all that's reasonable is _pain brule?_" asked the
Captain impatiently.

"It's the colour, Conrad. One of those delicate tertiaries that have
been so much worn lately."

"Sixty guineas for a dinner-dress! That's rather stiff. Do you know
that a suit of dress-clothes costs me nine pounds, and lasts almost as
many years?"

"My dear Conrad, for a man it is so different. No one looks at your
clothes. That dress was for Lady Ellangowan's dinner