Jean Gloucester would always be beautiful, but already in her thirtieth year she wore a worn and fragile air. The two children who now occupied the nursery upstairs had made heavy demands on her strength. Jean was one of the women who, though naturally robust, seem totally unfitted for the strain of child-bearing. Her figure was slight almost to emaciation, and her cheeks had lost their bloom, but she was still a picture fascinating to the eye as she leant back against the cushions of the sofa--bright rose-coloured cushions, newly covered to show off the beauty of a wonderful grey gown made in the long flowing folds which she affected, and which were in striking contrast to the inartistic dresses of the period. In whatever direction Jean economised it was never in dress or household decorations. She was one of the women in whom the beauty instinct takes precedence above other tastes. If it had been her lot to live in a garret on ten shillings a week she would have deprived herself of food until she had saved enough money to paper the walls with a harmonious colour, and to buy a strip of curtaining to match. To purchase a prosaic garment for five pounds, when an artistic one could be procured for ten, was to her practically an impossibility. She stifled any pangs of conscience by arguing that the outlay was economical in the end. Good things wore longer, one did not grow wearied of them as of cheaper designs; and, to do her justice, these theories were invariably supported by her husband. His wife's beauty was a continual joy to Robert Gloucester, and he took a boyish delight in the moments when, walking by her side, he encountered chance City friends, and watched the first casual glance brighten into surprised admiration. It appeared to him but another instance of Jean's surprising cleverness that she always "hit upon such stunning clothes," and he pitied from his heart the poor fellows who possessed dull, dowdy wives. Jean looked like a queen beside them; but a queen is an expensive luxury in the home of a struggling business man. The process of "selling out a share or two" had been resorted to several times in the course of the last few years, and Robert had begun to lie awake at nights, pondering uneasily about the future. The lines in his forehead had deepened into furrows, but his eyes were clear and bright as ever; he moved in the same quick, alert fashion, and his laugh rang full and joyous as a boy's. Piers Rendall's dark hair had turned grey--a curious dark shade of grey which gave an effect of _poudre_. The change gave an added distinction to his appearance, and showed the dark eyes and eyebrows in striking contrast. He was thin, however, and the nervous twitching of the features was more frequent than of old.