I was at that time--but not now, gentle reader, so cheer up and read on--I was at that time in the class not of the permanently but of the precariously rich. And through a miscalculation I had laid myself open to the dangers that lie in wait for the man short of ready cash. The miscalculation was as to the extravagance of my wife’s undertakings. She, against my express request, had contracted without consulting or telling me several enormous bills. It is idle to say she ought not have done this. I knew her well; I should have been on guard. I had begun my married life wrong, as the young man very much in love is apt to do; so, to hold her love and liking, I had to keep on giving her taste for spending money free rein. If I had not, she would have thought me small and mean, would have made life at home exceedingly uncomfortable for me, for I am not of those men who can take from a woman what they wish whether she wishes to give or not. So the whole fault was mine. When the storm broke, in the light of its first terrific flash that illuminated for me every part of my affairs, I discovered that I was not prepared as I had been imagining. The big bills of my wife were presented, for the merchants knew I was heavily interested in the stocks that were tobogganing. Those bills had to be paid, and paid at once, or it would run like wildfire uptown and down that I was in difficulties; and when a man is known to be in financial difficulties, how the birds and beasts of prey from eagles and lions to buzzards and jackals do come flapping and loping! There followed several anxious days and nights. On one of those nights I rose from beside my wife--we still slept together--and went into the adjoining room. I turned on an electric light and began for the thousandth time, I dare say, to look at the critical papers and to grope for the desperate “way out.” I was startled by my wife’s voice--sleepy, peevish: “Do turn out that light and come to bed, Godfrey. You know how it disturbs me for you to get up in the night. And I’ve such a hard day before me to-morrow with the upholsterers and curtain people.” I obediently turned off the light. As I was about to throw myself into bed and draw the covers over me, a broad beam from the moon flooded the face of a portrait on the opposite wall--the face of my daughter Margot. I sat on the edge of the bed and looked at that face--pure, sweet, with the same elevated expression her mother had in these days of refinement and climbing. Said I to Edna: “Are you asleep, dear?” “No,” she answered crossly. “I’m waiting for you to quiet down.” “Then--let me talk to you a few minutes.” “Oh, please!” she cried, flinging herself to the far edge of the bed. “You have no consideration for me--none at all.” “Listen,” I said. “I’m face to face with ruin.” She did not move or speak, but I could feel her intense attention.