o go on with the desecration of her beautiful hands in dish-water,
and the ruin of her complexion over the kitchen-stove. The clothes
that he had planned to buy for her, the jewels, the splendid car--the
cohort of servants he had planned for her--the social prestige! And
instead of that, he was nothing but a fragment of commercial
driftwood, and he couldn't afford, now, to buy her so much as a new
hat, without a corresponding sacrifice.

And yet--involuntarily, he stiffened--and yet he'd be hanged if he
went back and acted like a whipped pup. No, he was supposed to be a
man, and his friends and Anna believed in him, an he'd be hanged if he
went back and confessed anything at all, admitted anything. It was all
well enough to look facts in the face, but it was better still to keep
on fighting until the gong rang. And when he was fighting against the
cant purity and goodness of Mr. Mix, and the cold astigmatism of Aunt
Mirabelle, he'd be hanged if he quit in the first round. No, even if
Henry himself knew that he was beaten, nobody else was going to know
it, and Anna least of all.

At five o'clock, he came blithely into his living-room: and as he saw
Anna's expression, his own changed suddenly. He had thought to find
her in tears; but she was coming to him with her usual welcome, her
usual smile.

Henry didn't quite understand himself, but he was just the least bit
offended, regardless of his relief. You simply couldn't tell from one
minute to the next what a woman was going to do. By all precedent,
Anna should have been enjoying hysterics, which Henry had come
prepared to treat.

"Well," he said, "you'd better cancel that order for golden pheasants,
old dear." She stopped short, and stared at him curiously, as though
the remark had come from a stranger.

"We've got lamb chops tonight," said Anna, with whimsical relevance,
"and fresh strawberry ice-cream. And pheasants are awfully indigestible,
anyway."

Henry returned her stare. "What have you been doing all the
afternoon--reading Marcus Aurelius?"

"No, I haven't been reading anything at all. I tidied up the kitchen.
What happened to _you_?"

There were two different ways of presenting the narrative, and Henry
chose the second. He made it a travesty: and all the time that he was
talking, Anna continued to gaze at him in that same curious,
thoughtful fashion, as if she were noting, for the first time, a
subtle variation in his character.

"And--aren't you eve