her meet it
on the old ground of the disapproval of all her advisers. But when he
had ended she merely said, without looking up from the toy in her hand:
"I always expected that you would need a great deal more money than you
thought."

The comment touched him at his most vulnerable point. "But you see why?
You understand how the work has gone on growing--?"

His wife lifted her head to glance at him for a moment. "I am not sure
that I understand," she said indifferently; "but if another loan is
necessary, of course I will sign the note for it."

The words checked his reply by bringing up, before he was prepared to
deal with it, the other and more embarrassing aspect of the question. He
had hoped to reawaken in Bessy some feeling for the urgency of his task
before having to take up the subject of its cost; but her cold
anticipation of his demands as part of a disagreeable business to be
despatched and put out of mind, doubled the difficulty of what he had
left to say; and it occurred to him that she had perhaps foreseen and
reckoned on this result.

He met her eyes gravely. "Another loan _is_ necessary; but if any proper
provision is to be made for paying it back, your expenses will have to
be cut down a good deal for the next few months."

The blood leapt to Bessy's face. "My expenses? You seem to forget how
much I've had to cut them down already."

"The household bills certainly don't show it. They are increasing
steadily, and there have been some very heavy incidental payments
lately."

"What do you mean by incidental payments?"

"Well, there was the pair of cobs you bought last month----"

She returned to a resigned contemplation of the letter-opener. "With
only one motor, one must have more horses, of course."

"The stables seemed to me fairly full before. But if you required more
horses, I don't see why, at this particular moment, it was also
necessary to buy a set of Chinese vases for twenty-five hundred
dollars."

Bessy, at this, lifted her head with an air of decision that surprised
him. Her blush had faded as quickly as it came, and he noticed that she
was pale to the lips.

"I know you don't care about such things; but I had an exceptional
chance of securing the vases at a low price--they are really worth
twice as much--and Dick always wanted a set of Ming for the drawing-room
mantelpiece."

Richard Westmore's name was always tacitly avoided between them, for in
Amherst's case the disagreea