just what I please with my own money," she continued, "and
send every bit of it to Arethusa if I wish. You have no earthly right
to forbid me any natural use of it."

But this money of his wife's was a thing about which Ross Worthington
was almost foolishly sensitive. The fact that Elinor's monetary
possession far exceeded his had kept him a great many months from
asking her to marry him, when the most casual observer might have read
his secret with the greatest ease. So enormous was the discrepancy
between their quotas of this world's good that more than one spiteful
minded person had intimated it had had something to do with his choice.
He knew this only too well, and the thought rankled. Elinor had so
much; she could do so much; she could do so much more for herself than
he could ever do for her that it was a great sore spot. They were to
live in Elinor's house; ride about in Elinor's expensive automobile; be
waited upon like royalty, as he phrased it, by Elinor's servants; they
were even now, after a lengthy argument about it, traveling home with
Elinor's wealth in a far more luxurious manner than he had ever been
able to travel on his own money.

The most foolish sort of false pride considered this offer to send a
check to Arethusa a sort of finishing straw. He would keep all
expenditure for his daughter strictly for himself.

"I wish you would! I wish you would send it all to somebody! I wish to
goodness you didn't have a cent of the money!" He rose, his jaw set
savagely, and turned away. "I didn't marry you for it, though from the
way you spend it on me I'm not at all surprised that a great many
people say I did!"

And he was off down the deck in an almost blind rage. Arethusa's temper
came not so much from the fact that her hair was red, as right straight
from her father.

Elinor stared after him, too hurt to want to follow him, or to try to
call him back. They had had many a heated discussion as to which
portion of the expense she was to bear and what was to be left for him,
but none had gone so far; never degenerated into as real a quarrel as
this.

But Ross was too tempestuously moody to remain angry long. It needed
only one turn of the deck for him to be back at her feet, ready to
humble himself in the dirt in the abjectness of his apology.

The outcome of it was that Ross himself wrote a letter to enclose
Elinor's check, that letter Arethusa had kissed under the hollow tree.
It required much persu