"That's nice," continued the old man with the dewy innocence of a babe. "Then he can let you off your rent if you get behind." "So he could," commented Ruth, "if only he was to think of it. Do you hear your dad, Alf?" She paid the week's rent into his hand, coin by coin, before his father's eyes. Then he turned and slouched out. "Good-night, Alf," Ruth said, almost affectionately. "It 'as been nice seein you and all." Determined to enjoy her triumph to the full, she followed him to the door. In the street he turned to meet her mocking glance, in which the cruelty gleamed like a half-sheathed sword. His own eyes were impudent and familiar as they engaged hers. "Say, Ruth, what's he after?" he asked, cautiously, in lowered voice. "Who?" "That feller I caught you with the other night--when Ern wasn't there. Black-ugly. What's he after?" "Same as you, hap." He sniggered feebly. "What's that?" "Me." She stood before him; a peak armoured through the ages in eternal ice and challenging splendidly in the sun. He hoiked and spat and turned away. "Brassy is it?" he said. "One thing, my lass, you been in trouble once, mind. I saved you then. But I mightn't be able to a second time." Behind Ruth's shoulder a dim face, bearded and spectacled, peered at him with the mild remorselessness of the moon. "Alfred," said a voice, dreadful in its gentle austerity. When the old man said good-bye to Ruth ten minutes later he kissed her for the first time. She smiled up at him gallantly. "It's all right, dad," she said, consolingly. "I'm not afraid o _him_ whatever else." It was the first time she had called him dad, and even now she did it unconsciously. Edward Caspar ambled home. He did not attempt to conceal from his wife where he went on Tuesday mornings. Indeed, as he soared on mysterious wings, he seemed to have lost all fear of the woman who had tyrannised over him for his own good so long. Time, the unfailing arbitrator, had adjusted the balance between the two. And sometimes it seemed to Mrs. Trupp, observing quietly as she had done for thirty years, that in the continuous unconscious struggle that persists inevitably between every pair from the first mating till death, the victory in this case would be to the man intangible as air. That morning, as Edward entered the house, his wife was standing in the kitchen before the range. Anne Caspar was white-haired now. Her limbs had lost much of their comeliness, her motions their grace. She was sharp-boned and gaunt of body as she had always been of mind--not unlike a rusty sword. As the front-door opened, and the well-trained man sedulously wiped his boots upon the mat, she looked up over her spectacles, dropping her chin, grim and sardonic. "I know where you been, dad," she taunted. He stayed at the study-door, like a great pawing bear. Then he answered suddenly and with a smile. "I've been in heaven."