She stood for a moment quite still. Her back was turned to them, her shoulders were moving. When she spoke, however, her tone was still hard and unsympathetic. "Very well," she said, "I'll get back to Garden Green. But mind you, my man," she went on, "none of your sneaking back home just when you're ready for it! Next time it shall be as I choose. I'm no wishy-washy creature, to be your wife one moment and something you can't bear even to look at, the next. No, I don't want none of your monkey tricks, opening the door!" she went on angrily, as Burton rose to see her out. "Stay where you are. I can find my way out of the place." She departed, slamming the door after her. Mr. Waddington came and sat down by his former clerk's side. "Tell me, Burton," he asked kindly, "how did you come to do this thing?" "It was the professor and the girl," he murmured. "They made it seem so reasonable." "It is always the girl," Mr. Waddington reflected. "The girl with the blue eyes, I suppose, whom you told me about? The girl of the garden?" Burton nodded. "Her father is a scientific man," he explained. "He wants money badly to go on with some excavations in Assyria. Between them all, I consented. Waddington," he went on, looking up, "I was beginning to get terrified. I had only two beans left. I have parted with them. They could have lasted me only a few months. I thought if I had to go back, I would go back free from any anxieties of work in an office. Wealth must help one somehow. If I can travel, surround myself with books, live in the country, I can't ever be so bad, I can't fall back where I was before. What do you think, Mr. Waddington? You must have this on your mind sometimes. You yourself have only six or seven months left." Mr. Waddington sighed. "Do you think that it isn't a nightmare for me, too?" he said gently. "Only I am afraid that wealth will not help you. The most vulgar and ignorant people I know are among the wealthiest. There is a more genuine simplicity and naturalness among the contented and competent poor than any other class. You were wrong, Burton. Riches breed idleness, riches tempt one to the purchase of false pleasure. You would have been better back upon your stool in my office." "It is too late," Burton declared, a little doggedly. "I came to ask you if you wanted to join? For two more beans they would make you, too, a director, and give you five thousand shares." Mr. Waddington shook his head. "Thank you, Burton," he said, "I would sooner retain my beans. I have no interest in your enterprise. I think it hateful and abominable. I cannot conceive," he went on, "how you, Burton, in your sane mind, could have stooped so low as to associate yourself in any way with the thing." "You don't know what my temptations were!" Burton groaned.