“I will wait no longer,” interrupted her husband. “I have already waited on your good pleasure for close upon a year; put off time after time, with excuse after excuse, until such a period as you could manage to screw your courage to the sticking-point. I now apprehend that that period will be of the same epoch as the Greek Kalends! Frankly, Madeline, I am not going to stand any more nonsense. I am your husband; I can support you--certainly only in a very modest fashion compared to this,” looking round. “You will have no carriage, no maid, no fine clothes--at least not _yet_, they may come by-and-by. Your father is quite fit to travel alone; he ate a remarkably good tea, and told me that he had played two games of billiards this afternoon; were he really feeble, it would be a different affair. It is shameful--yes, that is the only word that will fit the subject--that I should have to remind you of your child! He should be your first care. Now, he _is_ delicate, if you like;--he wants his mother, poor little chap! You will stay at home and look after him. It may not be your pleasure, but it is unquestionably your duty. You can go to Mrs. Holt’s and remain there and be welcome as long as you like. You were very happy there once, Maddie,” he added rather wistfully. No answer; she merely raised her eyes, and surveyed him fixedly. “I will look about for a small furnished flat; a little villa at Norwood, or wherever you like. Lodgings, after _this_, would be too terrible a change--I must admit.” “So would the villa, or even the small flat,” she said to herself. In one glance she beheld her future: two servants, _perhaps_; two sitting-rooms, _perhaps_; a strip of back garden with stockings on a line; Laurence absent from morning till night; nothing to do all day long, but attend to her frugal housekeeping; no smart frocks; no smart friends; no excitement, amusements, or society. She glanced at Laurence. Yes, his linen was frayed, there was a hole in one of his gloves, and in her heart there flared up a passionate hatred of genteel poverty; it was not life, it was a mere dragged-out existence, from Sunday to Sunday--from a sirloin of beef to a fore-quarter of mutton. Ugh! And, on the other hand, the trip on the Princesse de Lynxky’s yacht, the already made up party for the carnival, the dresses that she had ordered for both; the costumes that were to dazzle Nice; the sketch for her carriage at the battle of flowers. At last she said--