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chievously, “You didn’t look as if you did, half a minute ago!”

“Ah—h!” He tried to see her face, but she moved too quickly. “Don’t be mean, Pamela! Let me see. When did I ever look as if I didn’t love you?”

“Just then, I’ve told you! You had a look on your face, just for a moment, like a—an exile. Oh, Tony dearr—all restless and hungry. No, I didn’t imagine it. It’s getting too dark to imagine things—no, don’t laugh. Why should I think of imagining that kind of look on my husband’s face?”

“I won’t give you the chance of imagining it again! . . . You’re over-tired.”

The thought came back more than once, later on, but he was on guard now. It never clamoured so loudly for recognition that it showed unwillingly in his face, but came softly up the back stairs of his mind, to be banished at will. He was too good a philosopher, moreover, to let one thorny thought poison all his happiness in this dream-holiday.

“Even if I haven’t the housekeeper’s idea of heaven,” he reflected grimly, “it’s pretty silly to make a fuss because things have come easily at last.

Well, I suppose there’s always some kind of work waiting—but what I’m starving for is actual graft that you’ve got to do for your tucker . . . oh, here she is, the darling, with her new fan.”

Pamela came up to him with that specially ethereal look she had in evening dress, and with her eyes more than usually starry.

“Ready?” she said. “How do I look? Do you like me to-night? Am I nice enough to go to the Opera with you?”