ay, one and ninepence
out of that sovereign, the man who was engaged to Winny Dymond would
have died rather.

Of course, it was a thundering lot to spend. But then Ranny desired, he
was determined to spend a thundering lot. It was extravagant, but he
wished to be extravagant. It was reckless, irresponsible, but reckless
and irresponsible was what he felt. He meant to go it. He meant to have
his fling just for once. And he meant that Winny, who had never had
hers, nor any share in anybody else's, should taste, just for once, the
rapture of a fling. She should have it for three solid hours of that
delicious night, in one mad, flaming, stupendous orgy at the Earl's
Court Exhibition.

For it wasn't really his rise that called for it. That was only a means
to his divorce and marriage. It was his engagement that he proposed to
celebrate.

The engagement, though he could hardly believe it, was a fact. True, it
could not be made public until a decent interval after the divorce; but
it had been acknowledged and settled between him and Winny as soon as
ever he knew that he had got his rise. They would never celebrate it at
all if they didn't celebrate it now before all the beastliness began.

For he knew perfectly well that it would be beastly. Winny would feel it
even more than he did. She would feel it for him. Things that they had
both forgotten would be raked up again, all the misery and all the
shame. Now that it was imminent he dreaded the Divorce Court. His Uncle
Randall could not have shrunk more painfully from this public washing of
his dirty linen. He would come out of the Great Washhouse feeling
almost, but not quite as unclean as if his linen had been kept at home
and never washed at all.

And the trail of all that nastiness would spread over the six months of
their engagement; it would poison everything.

He didn't mean to think about it or let Winny think. They were going to
enjoy themselves to-night while they could, while they still felt
innocent and clean and jolly.

* * * * *

He stooped for a moment over the crib where his little son lay curled
and snuggling, his face hidden, his head, with its crop of dark hair,
showing like the fur of some soft burrowing animal. He freed the little
mouth muffled in bedclothes, and tucked the blankets closer. He picked
up Stanny's Teddy bear that had fallen lamentably to the floor, and laid
it where Stanny would find it beside him when