“Of course I have the office, but that is crowded and noisy and impossible to get to after the elevator stops running nights, unless I want to die of heart failure after the tenth flight of stairs. I think I’d like a place where I could study a bit by myself now and then. Let me have my sanctuary upstairs and then when you are entertaining people I don’t care about or too many of them I’ll sneak off there and not bother you.” Fliss had that divine gift of being able to leave a man alone. She puckered her brow a bit, sized up the fact that his wish was very real, and agreed. “You are a very satisfactory person to have married,” he finished. “Do you like this place at all?” asked Fliss, looking around her breakfast-room with its old blue curtains, painted furniture and long windows at which two canaries sang charmingly. “I like it a lot. I like to charm my eyes with it. It suits you exactly, but it’s young and there may be times when I’ll feel my age. Then the old furniture will rest me. Understand?” “Yes,” said Fliss, quite truthfully. So it was arranged. And sometimes when the crowd of people who flocked to Fliss’s house--an ever-increasing crowd, whether they came for Red Cross work or for amusement--were too noisy or too heterogeneous for Matthew’s taste, he undoubtedly found it sanctuary indeed. It kept him from getting tired of his home, too, kept him able to appreciate its color, its spirit, its accord with a gay, fashionable time. With all these things it was also always comfortable. Fliss could not cook, but she had discretion enough to hire a good cook, to spare no expense on her table, even though she conformed to war regulations outwardly, to have a housemaid who knew how to keep bedrooms fresh and clean and sweet smelling. Matthew’s home was orderly; he was subject to no discomforts and he had good food, as well as a wife who carried no flavor of the domestic side of living around with her. Matthew used to like to come into her room, morning or night, and see her, elaborate in negligees, always pretty, always light, always with a smile for him. He called her a good investment and he never criticized her expenditures. Matthew came first. Fliss was thoroughly honest about that. She attended to his wants with ungrudging pleasure. Then came her next interest, the business that intrigued her greatly and aroused less kindliness and perhaps a slight feeling of revenge--establishing her position in Carrington society.