"This is the housekeeping; the other's odd expenses. But I'd better finish telling you about mother's will first. She left me two hundred and twenty pounds a year." This time he made no sign at the news, except by raising his eyebrows and directing towards her a steady look of interest and inquiry. "So," she continued, "we have been quite well off. Directly you left I reckoned up our expenses and found we were better off than before, on two hundred a year, and I got a charwoman. I told you the first part of the year was like a half-holiday. After my dear mother died and I had the money, I engaged Ann." "Quite right," he said rather gruffly. "I am like you, Osborn, I have had a great year. If it hadn't meant losing mother it would have been a perfect year." After a long pause, he dropped out, incredulously: "Without me?" She felt her hands grow suddenly cold with fear of the battle. "Yes," she nodded, "without you." As he looked at her she was again as dazzling to him as a beautiful stranger; and as strange. He said somewhat stiffly: "That's not exactly what a man expects to hear when he comes back after a long time." "I'm sorry." "You've changed somehow. What's the matter?" "I've grown young again. That's all, isn't it?" "I don't know if that's all." "Let's talk of something else," she said gaily; "tell me more about yourself. I've had no details yet, and I'm longing for them. You're keeping the job, are you? And just what good things does keeping it mean?" "A fur coat for Marie," he said with a hint of reproachful pathos. "How lovely! But what will it mean to you was what I'm asking?" "The salary is five hundred, as you know." And guardedly, for he knew many men who deemed it well to be careful over telling their wives these things, he added: "With any luck the commission's more than the salary." He left it vague, like that, for safety. "I do congratulate you, Osborn." "Our ship's really in, at last, you see, old girl." "My poor income fades into the background behind yours!" "Well, yours isn't so bad for a woman!" "So I've found. I've had clothes, and gone about, and begun to think and read and see good plays again, all on the strength of it." She opened a bank-book. "This is all the accounting for the two hundred you arranged to be paid in to me. You'll see I've used it legitimately--none of it's gone on frippery. And I've paid George's schooling myself this last six months, and Ann's wages, as I hadn't your permission for either. So you'll see there's even a balance left to your credit." "Why make a song about my 'permission'? You've always been a free agent, haven't you?" "Won't you just run your eye over this, now you're taking hold of the family bank account again?" To satisfy her he took the book and skimmed over figures rapidly. "You've been a good girl." "So glad you think so."