ong hat-boxes beneath the beds, pulled one out, and
discovered a straw hat in it.

"Will it do?" he questioned doubtfully.

"Let me look at it."

He approached her and gave her the hat, which she carefully examined,
frowning.

"Put it on," she said.

He put it on, and she gazed at him for what seemed to him an
unnecessarily long time. His thought was that she liked to hold him
under her gaze.

"Well?" he exclaimed impatiently.

"It's quite all right," she said. "What's the matter with it? It makes
you look about fourteen." He felt envy in her voice. Then she added:
"But surely you won't be able to wear that thing to-morrow?"

"Of course not. I only want it for this afternoon.... This sun."

"Oh!" she cried. "I do think it's a shame I can't go to the Opening!
It's just my luck."

He considered that she arraigned her luck much too often; he considered
that on the whole her luck was decidedly good. But he knew that she had
to be humoured. It was her right to be humoured.

"Yes," he said judicially and rather shortly. "I'm sorry too! But what
are you going to do about it? If you can't go, you can't. And you know
it's absolutely out of the question." As a fact he was glad that her
condition made such an excursion impossible for her. She would certainly
have been rather a ticklish handful for him at the Opening.

"But I should so have _enjoyed_ it!" she insisted, with emphasis.

There it was, the thirst for enjoyment, pleasure! The supreme,
unslakable thirst! She had always had it, and he had always hardened
himself against it--while often, nevertheless, accepting with secret
pleasure the satisfactions of her thirst. Thus, for example, in the
matter of dancing. She had shared to the full in the extraordinary craze
for dancing which had held the West End for several years. Owing to her
initiative they had belonged to two dancing clubs whose members met
weekly in the saloons of the great hotels. The majority of the members
were acutely tedious to George, but Lois was quite uncritical, save on
the main point; she divided the members into good dancers and bad
dancers. George was a pretty good dancer. He liked dancing. Membership
of these clubs involved expense, it interfered with his sleep, it made
his early mornings more like defeats than triumphs, it prevented him
from duly reading and sketching. But he liked dancing. While resenting
the compulsion to outrage his conscience, he enjoyed the sin. What
exasperated