The outlay on furniture did not worry him much. As Mrs. Walford pointed out, the things would "always be there" and "once they were bought, they were bought!" In her company they proceeded to Tottenham Court Road every morning for a week, and this one sped more quickly to him than any yet. It was a foretaste of life with Cynthia to choose armchairs, and etchings, and ornaments, and the rest, for their home together. They had found a house at fifty pounds per annum; it was about ten minutes' walk from The Hawthorns, a semi-detached villa in red brick, with nice wide windows, and electric bells, and rose-trees on either side of the tessellated path. They wanted to be able to drive up to it when they returned from the honeymoon and find it ready for them. Mrs. Walford was to buy the kitchen utensils, and engage a servant while they were away. All they had to do now was to buy the articles of interest, and settle the wall-papers, and have little intermediate luncheons, and go back to the shop, and sip tea while rolls of carpet were displayed. It was great fun. In the shops, though, the things seldom seemed to look so nice as they had done in the catalogues, and it was generally necessary to pay more than had been foreseen. But, again, "once they were bought, they were bought!" The thought was sustaining. If Kent felt blank when he contemplated the total of what they had spent, and remembered that the kitchen clamoured still, he reflected that to kiss Cynthia in such a jolly little menage would certainly be charming, and the girl averred ecstatically that the dessert service "looked better than mamma's!" He estimated that they could live in comfort on two hundred and fifty a year--for the first year, at all events; and by then he would have finished a novel, which, in view of the Press notices that he had had, he believed would bring them in as much as that. Even if it did not, there would be a substantial portion of his capital remaining; and with the third book----No, he had no cause for dismay, he told himself. They had decided upon Mentone for the wedding trip--a fortnight. It was long enough, and they both felt that they would rather go to Mentone for a fortnight than to Bournemouth or Ventnor for a month. It would amount to much the same thing financially, and be much more pleasant. "The morning after we come back, darling," said Kent, "I shall go straight to my desk after breakfast, and you know you'll see scarcely more of me till evening than if I were a business man and had to go to the City." "Y-e-s," concurred Cynthia meekly. "Of course--I understand." CHAPTER VI Mr. and Mrs. Waxford's present was to be a grand piano--or possibly a semi-grand, since the drawing-room was not extensive--and with a son being educated for the musical profession, it was natural that they shouldn't select it till he returned; they wished for the advantage of his judgment.