"George's winter stockings; they're to have turn-down tops like
grown-up ones."

He took the knitting and pretended to examine the pattern, though he
was not thinking of anything save her.

The year's parting had been a miracle. Love had slyly redecorated his
house throughout.

"Jolly nice," he commented on the stockings, "but, please, give me my
tea now."

He smiled at her a lazy, autocratic smile. All this flat and the
people in it were his, and he would not have changed it for a throne.
He thought again, though in a more mature fashion, much as he used to
do in the first married year, how good it was to come in and shut your
own door upon a snubbed world.

She answered the smile by one faint and chilly and reposeful. Leaning
forward she began to busy herself with the tea things. The sugar tongs
poised: "Let's see," she cogitated, "it _was_ two lumps, wasn't
it?"

He assented, surprised. "Time I came home," he said, affecting to
grumble lightly.

"What do you think of the children?" she asked. "I suppose you find
them grown? Did they remember you?"

"Yes, of course. I should think they did!"

"Muffin, Osborn?"

"Thank you, darling. I say," he smiled with gratification, "you look
as though you'd all done yourselves pretty well while I've been away.
This is cosy."

He indicated the tea table.

"Of course, after mother's death--"

"I was awf'ly sorry, Marie. I'm afraid I wrote rather a brief letter
about it; life was rather a rush, you know."

"It didn't matter. I was going to say, that after her death, I found
myself quite well off, comparatively."

"You didn't tell me much."

"No. Well, you didn't ask much. Surely, I answered all your questions?"

He remembered uncomfortably the many months of his abstraction with
Roselle; she had occupied his thoughts for a while almost to the
exclusion of everything else.

"I expect you did, dearest."

"However, I'm going into accounts with you presently, and then you'll
know everything."

"Overspent yourself?" he smiled complacently, with the knowledge of
that thousand pounds backing him. "Want money to go on with?"

She shook her head.

"I don't want anything, thanks."

The thought was to her like a bulwark; it was a thought which
thousands of wives would have loved to possess. It somehow completed
her sense of detachment from him. She puzzled him.

"How long have you had a maid?" he asked. "I must say I was awf'ly
surprised when what's--her--n