"Please," said Muriel; "I have all I want." "All?" smiled her husband. "Of course I have. You've got me such loads of lovely things already that I don't know what I am to do with them all and where to pack them. You know you have got me ever so much, Jim." "For yourself, perhaps I have got you a few things, dearie; and I'm glad you like them. But I have always heard that Paris was the place to get some other sort of things. Aren't there some of those--some little things--some little lace things that we ought to get against the arrival of the newcomer? I am so proud, Muriel, and I want the newcomer to know I am." Muriel's voice faltered. "So soon----" she said. "We might as well make what preparations we can while we are in the city where the best preparations can be made. No, no. You must come. Come along." She went with him, pale and silent, and Jim led her through shop after shop and forced her, by good-natured insistence, to buy baby clothes. She protested at the start; she tried to cut the expedition in half; she endeavoured to postpone this purchase or that; but he would not heed her. He urged her to suggest articles of the infantile toilette of which he was totally ignorant; when she declared that she knew as little as he, he made her translate his questions to the frankly delighted shop clerks. He had been inspired with the idea that, by such a process as this, he could bring her to a proper point of view in regard to the approaching event, and he did not concede failure until Muriel at last broke down and fainted in their _taxi-metre_. The next morning she told Jim that she wanted to go away. "All right," said Stainton: after his journey from Lyons he had slept long and heavily and was still very tired. "Where'd you like to go?" "I don't know. Anywhere. I'm not particular." "Well, we'll think it over to-day and look up the time-tables." They were in their sitting-room at the hotel. Muriel parted the curtains and stood looking out upon a grey day. "I don't want to think it over," she said. "But we've got to know where we're going before we start." "I don't see why. Besides, I said I wasn't particular where we went. I want to go to-day." "To-day?" Jim did not like to rush about so madly, and his voice showed it. "Why not? Look at the weather. Half the time we've been here it's been like this. I don't think Paris agrees with me." He softened. "Aren't you well?" "No." "What is it? My dear child!" He came toward her. "Don't call me that," she said. "Why not, Muriel?" "It sounds as if you were so much older than I am. Jim----" She put her hand in his--"I'm horrid, I know----" "You're never that!" "Yes I am. I'm horrid now. You don't know. I'm not ill, but I'm so tired of Paris. It grates on my nerves. Let's go away now. The servants can pack, and we can be somewhere else by evening." Again Muriel took refuge at the window. "There's Switzerland," she said. "I should like to see the Alps."