ome any time you like," she said goodhumouredly, "there will
always be peace as far as I am concerned."

When he had entered the room, he had missed something in it; and now
it occurred to him what it was.

"Where's my bed?" he demanded.

"In the dressing-room. I had it moved there, when you went; I thought
I might as well give myself more space."

"Of course! I noticed something unusual about the dressing-room. You
waited for me to move it back here, I suppose? It's rather a tough job
for women."

"The hall-porter would have done it, you know."

"Never mind, pet. I'll do it ever so quietly after dinner."

She did not reply.

"Are you ready?" he asked. "Come back to the fire, and sit down.
There's so much to tell each other about, isn't there?"

She moved to the door acquiescently and switched out the light, he
following. A savoury smell crept through the chinks of the kitchen
door, with the all-pervasiveness of cookery in flats. He sniffed it.

"How familiar! But you don't do the cooking now?"

"No; I only help, sometimes. Ann's a treasure."

"What do we pay her?"

"Thirty pounds a year."

"Whew!"

She cast a sidelong glance at him. "A domestic drudge is worth it, I
assure you; women have been consistently underrated."

"But fool work like cleaning saucepans and helping with the kids--"

"Shutting oneself up with the sink; working early; working late;
breathing ashes and dust and grease; keeping tolerably civil and
cheerful over it ... that's the job we're speaking of. I ought to know
all about it," she said in a low voice, as if to herself.

She sat in her corner of the chesterfield and took up her knitting. He
sat down, too, by her, all at once alert, surveying the flying
movements of her dear hands; hands as tender and white as ever he
remembered them.

"Oh come!" he said in affectionate but uneasy remonstrance, "you don't
look much as if you'd been shut up with the sink, working early and
working late."

"You forget I've had a whole year's holiday." She kept her eyes on her
work, as if re-casting that first year upon her busy needles. "At
least," she reflected, almost as if to herself, "part of the time was
only half-holiday; but the last six months have been wonderful."

Jealousy rose in Osborn; jealousy of he knew not what. Something or
someone had brought colour and smiles to her, and it was not himself.
As he began to suggest that fact to himself, before he could do more
than begin: