s
bewildered him a little and he had some difficulty in seeing the
difference between the latest thing and the cheapest. Whenever she was
with him she affected the manners of a spendthrift; she would call cabs
to carry her a hundred yards, give a beggar a shilling, or throw a pair
of gloves out of the window because they had been worn once.

Cairns smiled tolerantly. She might as well have her fling, he thought,
and a lack of discipline was as charming in a mistress as it was
deplorable in a wife. He was therefore not surprised when, one morning,
he found Victoria apparently nervous and worried. She owned that she was
short of cash. In fact the manager of her bank had written to point out
that her account was overdrawn.

'Dear me,' said Cairns with mock gravity, 'you've been going it, old
girl! What's all this? "Self," "Self," why all these cheques are to
"Self." You'll go broke.'

'I suppose I shall,' said Victoria wearily. 'I don't know how I do it,
Tom. I'm no good at accounts. And I hate asking you for more money . . .
but what am I to do?'

She crossed her hands over her knees and looked up at him with a pretty
expression of appeal. Cairns laughed.

'Don't worry,' he said, curling a lock of her hair round a fat
forefinger. 'I'll see you through.'

Victoria received that afternoon a cheque for two hundred and fifty
pounds which she paid into her account. She did not, however, inform
Cairns that the proceeds of the "Self" cheques had been paid into a
separate account which she had opened with another bank. By this means,
she was always able to exhibit a gloomy pass book whenever it was
required.

Having discovered that Cairns was squeezable Victoria felt more hopeful
as to the future. She was his only luxury and made the most of his
liking for jewellery and furs. She even hit upon the more ingenious
experiment of interesting Barbezan Soeurs in her little speculations.
The device was not novel: for a consideration of ten per cent these
bustling dressmakers were ready to provide fictitious bills and even
solicitor's letters couched in frigidly menacing terms. Cairns laughed
and paid solidly. He had apparently far more money than he needed.
Victoria was almost an economy; without her he would have lost a fortune
at bridge, kept a yacht perhaps and certainly a motor. As it was he was
quite content with his poky chambers in St James', a couple of clubs
which he never thought of entering, the house in Elm Tree Pla