“What time is our train?” she asked. He told her. “Then I have time to do some shopping first.” “Shopping?” he asked, but unsuspiciously. She nodded. Sam was going to pay for his pleasures. Those blouses she had seen at Peter Robinson’s no longer seemed impossibly expensive. If Sam chose to enjoy himself in his own way, without her, she would enjoy herself in hers--with Sam to pay the piper. Shopping is a loose term; one shops when one buys a kipper or a diamond tiara. Ada was putting her hair up and he imagined her to mean that she wanted a packet of hair-pins. “Oh, yes,” he said pensively. “And while you go, I think I will just slip down to the House of Parliament again.” The House would not be sitting and he could not get in. He knew that, but he wanted to gaze, to look at the frame which was some day to contain him. He wanted to be certain that it was still there. “I think,” she said, “that you will come with me to the shop. I shall want you there to pay.” Sam paused in the act of fastening his collar. “To pay?” he asked, not unsuspiciously now. “Are your selfish pleasures all you think about?” Ada wanted to know. “Isn’t it a privilege to be allowed to buy me nice clothes?” He had not looked upon it in that light. In budgeting for their future he had indeed assumed that a trousseau lasted a bride for her first year. “I see,” he said gloomily; then remembering that he was in love with her, “of course,” he added with a smile which might count to him for heroism. “But we must not forget the fares, and after I have paid the bill here I shall not have more than two pounds left to spend.” “Then I spend two pounds on blouses,” she said. He made a monosyllabic noise which might have been “Yes.” It might also have been “Damn.” The truth was that he had deliberately kept those two pounds back, intending to spend some, but not, he hoped, all of it, on a present for Ada. He had thought of a hand-bag, had imagined her gasp of delight when he audaciously entered with her one of those forbiddingly inviting shops, her appreciation of his generosity. Last night had driven the thought entirely from his mind, and he was annoyed now not only at his forgetfulness, but at Ada. She did not ask, she demanded. A night in the Gallery may be regarded as dissipation, but at least it is not a crime. It is even patriotic, and he was asked to foot a bill for two pounds as the price of his patriotism. Ambition, he thought, would be an expensive luxury if he had to pay in clothes for Ada every time he went to a political meeting. For that, plainly, was her attitude: she demanded a _quid pro quo_: she announced a policy of retaliation.