"Quite so; of course," Gussie said. "The matter just came into my head. I merely mentioned it. Pray don't give it a thought." As they drove to the theatre, Auntie remarked that she should insist on paying for her ticket and her share of the cab, a suggestion at which Gussie and Grace were hospitably offended. She asked, then, if the house was safe, left with only the maid-servants to protect it. In order to reassure her, Augustus informed her that he was intending to go home once in the course of the evening to make sure that things were all right. "Not that it matters to me," Auntie told him; "for I have brought my valuables with me--jewellery and money, too. I always take them with me, in strange places. I could never enjoy the play if my mind were not at rest. I wear a bag concealed in the skirt of my dress on purpose." "Ah! I wish I could make Grace as thoughtful!" Gussie said. "Give me Auntie's money and jewels, then see!" Grace cried. "And I suppose you go to bed with them, too?" Gussie admiringly inquired. "Grace has never so much as carried up the plate-basket." He was quite right. Auntie did go to bed with them, always putting the bag containing them under her pillow. "A wise precaution!" said Gussie. "I'm a heavy sleeper," Auntie explained. "A robber might break in and take my property, and I never hear him; but let him touch the pillow beneath my head, and I'm wide awake on the moment." "Yes, but--" said Augustus Mellish, and smiled, "a few drops of chloroform on a handkerchief held over your face, Auntie, and where would you and your jewellery be then?" They were at the theatre, by that time, and Auntie did not answer. But when she went to bed that night she thought of what Grace's husband had said. She had a little difficulty with breathing, being a stout woman, and a horror of suffocation. The idea of that handkerchief held over her face was terrible. She loved her money and her jewels, but loved more her comfort and her life. "Once they stopped my breath, I should never wake up again!" she said to herself; and, deciding to alter her usual procedure, she returned her treasure from the bag hidden in her skirts to her jewel-case. The play had been a moving one. Grace, very susceptible to emotion, had laughed and cried beside her; but Auntie was a phlegmatic person. The comedy was just make-believe. She thought more, as she undressed, of Augustus's request for a loan than of the heart-stirring episodes of the drama. She had been wise not to begin lending him money, but to say at once, straight out, "_No._" He had asked for only a few pounds; if she had given them, he would have gone on to ask for more, in all probability. Auntie liked Grace well enough, rather better than most people, perhaps; but Grace had pleased herself in getting married; the man she had taken must keep her. He had no claim on Grace's Auntie. With such thoughts in her mind, as soon as her head touched the pillow, she slept.