"Oh, it's all very well talkin'. But your father's your father, when all's said an' done. The Duke doesn't think me a saint, but he'd be sorry to see me die." "No one wants you to die," she said impatiently. "That's bunkum, an'--an'--what's the word?" "Might I suggest 'sophistry'?" said Lady Jim, quite aware that her reasoning was fallacious. "Oh, you'll suggest anythin' to get your own way. But what I mean is that, though I do die, I don't really die." "How clearly you put things, Jim. Please yourself. We must go back to town with this money, to be whitewashed"; and eyeing the cheque contemptuously, she saw that it was unfortunately made payable to Jim. Her husband stretched for the cheque and slipped it into his waistcoat pocket. "I'm goin' to see the Duke m'self," he announced, "an' tell him everythin'." "What, about the money we've raised on the income?" "Every blessed thing," said Kaimes, doggedly; "he's my father, an' it's his duty to square things." "He mightn't follow your reasoning," murmured Leah, with one hand on the mantelpiece and the other holding up her skirts to warm one foot. "But you can't make a much worse mess of it than Lionel has made. Two hundred pounds--he must have thought he was asking money for some old woman. Shall I come with you, Jim?" "No." He halted at the door to deliver himself of the remark, "You're like a red rag to a bull." "Oh, very well. I only thought you'd like me to translate your talk into something resembling English." "Don't you fret yourself, I'll make him understand. An' if I do get things squared," cried Jim, warming at the thought of his heroism in facing an angry parent, "you'll have to drop spending money, an' live as other women do." "Yes, dear James, and you'll live as other men do, won't you?" "I'll do what I jolly well please. An' why James?" "There never was a St. Jim, that I ever heard of," mused Leah, turning pensive eyes on her exasperated husband, "and as you wish to canonise yourself, of course you must change your name. Yes, James"--she moved swiftly towards him, and detained him gently by the lapels of his coat--"from this time forth we'll live in holy matrimony, and pig it on what's left of the income. Curzon Street given up, Bayswater remains, and there, James darling, we'll live a life of extremely plain living and high thinking." "Don't talk bosh," growled Jim, trying to escape; but she held on.