sight of them struck his conscience. Was not he, too,
following his wife on the path of the new rich? No! As ever he was
blameless. He was merely executing the prescription of his doctor, who
had expounded the necessity of scientific idleness and the curative
effect of fine clothes on health. True, he knew himself to be cured, but
if nature had chosen to cure him too quickly, that was not his fault....
He heard his wife talking to Machin in the bedroom, and Machin talking
to his wife; and the servant's voice was as joyous and as worried as if
she herself, and not Eve, were about to give a little dinner at the
Grand Babylon. Queer! Queer! The phrase 'a quarter of a million' glinted
and flashed in the circumambient air. But it was almost a meaningless
phrase. He was like a sort of super-savage and could not count beyond a
hundred thousand. And, quite unphilosophical, he forgot that the ecstasy
produced by a hundred thousand had passed in a few days, and took for
granted that the ecstasy produced by two hundred and fifty thousand
would endure for ever.

"Take that thing off, please," he commanded his wife when he returned to
the bedroom in full array. She was by no means complete, but she had
achieved some progress, and was trying the effect of her garnet
necklace.

"But it's the best I've got," said she.

"No, it isn't," he flatly contradicted her, and opened the case so newly
purchased.

"Arthur!" she gasped, spellbound, entranced, enchanted.

"That's my name."

"Pearls! But--but--this must have cost thousands!"

"And what if it did?" he enquired placidly, clasping the thing with much
delicacy round her neck. His own pleasure was intense, and yet he
severely blamed himself. Indeed he called himself a criminal. Scarcely
could he meet her gaze when she put her hands on his shoulders, after a
long gazing into the mirror. And when she kissed him and said with
frenzy that he was a dear and a madman, he privately agreed with her.
She ran to the door.

"Where are you going?"

"I must show Sissie."

"Wait a moment, child. Do you know why I've bought that necklace?
Because the affair with Spinner has come off." He then gave her the
figures.

She observed, not unduly moved:

"But I knew _that_ would be all right."

"How did you know?"

"Because you're so clever. You always get the best of everybody."

He realised afresh that she was a highly disturbing woman. She uttered
highly disturbing verdicts without thou