He fretted about money too--a thing pathetic to the eyes with which at present Arthur looked on the world. But he did; he might be found surrounded by account-books, rent-books, pass-books, puzzling over them with a forlorn air and a wrinkled brow. It was not long before he took Arthur into his confidence, in some degree at least, about this worry of his. "We spend a terrible lot of money; I can't think where it all goes," he lamented. "But isn't it pretty obvious?" laughed Arthur. "You do things in style--and you're always doing them!" "There's this house--heavy! And Hilsey always sitting there, swallowing a lot!" Then he broke out in sudden peevishness: "Of course with anything like common prudence----" He stopped abruptly. "I'm not blaming anybody," he added lamely, after a pause. And then--"Do you keep within your income?" "I don't just now--by a long chalk. But yours is a trifle larger than mine, you know." "I can't do it. Well, I must raise some money, I suppose." Arthur did not know what to say. The matter was intimate and delicate; for there could be no doubt who was responsible, if too much money were being spent. "I'm sure if you--well, if you made it known how you feel----" he began. "Yes, and be thought a miser!" His voice sank to a mutter just audible. "Besides all the rest!" So he had grievances! Arthur smiled within himself. All husbands, he opined, had grievances, mostly unsubstantial ones. He could not believe that Godfrey was being forced into outrunning his means to any serious extent, or that he had any other grave cause for complaint. But, in truth, Godfrey's trouble--money apart--was an awkward one. He was aggrieved that he had not got what he did not want--his wife's affection. And he was aggrieved that she did not want what he had no desire to give her--namely, his. The state of things aggrieved him, yet he had no wish--at least no effective impulse--to alter it. He felt himself a failure in all ways save one--the provision of the fine things and the pleasures that Bernadette loved. Was he now to be a failure there too? He clung to the last rag of his tattered pride. Yet often he was, in his shy awkward way, kindly, gracious, and anxious to make his kinsman feel sure of a constant welcome. "Coming too often?" he said, in reply to a laughing apology of Arthur's. "You can't come too often, my dear boy! Besides you're a cousin of the house; it's open to you of right, both here and at Hilsey. Bernadette likes you to come too." "Has she told you so?" Arthur asked eagerly. "No, no, not in words, but anybody can see she does. We're too grave for her--Judith and I--and so's Oliver Wyse, I think. She likes him, of course, but with him she can't--er----" "Play about?" Arthur suggested.