He meant to astonish Ada, and succeeded, but the surprise he sprang did not work quite as he anticipated. For a moment, indeed, as he bought her hats and blouses she glowed with unaffected gratitude, and he tasted with her the joy of headstrong acquisition. But Ada’s glow was quick to pass. She had time in the train to forget the splendour of his presents and the dash that she would cut next Sunday, and to remember that he had spent a lot of money; he who denied that he had more than two pounds to spend had spent seven. Obviously, he had lied to her. It was true, she thought, that he had repented of his lie and of his meanness, and bought handsomely: the more handsome the purchase, the more demonstrable the lie. She recalled her dreadful interview with Anne, Anne’s statements of his means, and how little they conformed to the scale of Sam’s furnishing. She pondered Sam’s open-handedness in the blouse-shop, and concluded that the Branstones were congenital liars about money. In the future she would know how to act. Sam had plenty. “So you had money up your sleeve all the time,” she said. Sam winked facetiously. “There are a lot of funny things up my sleeve,” he said. “I’m learning that,” said Ada. Which he took for a compliment; and grinned. He had long since made up his mind that the way with women was to mystify them, to treat them like children at a conjuring entertainment, to surprise them with results, but never to explain. He nearly choked with pride over his exploit with Sir William Gatenby. But for the hat-box and the blouses up there on the rack, what he had done was too good to be true, and certainly it was too good to be told to a woman. They did not understand business; no woman could appreciate the daring spirit of his feat. If he told Ada that he had borrowed from Gatenby, she would simply say “Oh, yes,” and treat his unexampled audacity as a matter of course. It was inspiration, brilliantly conceived and brilliantly executed, and its bright memory was not to be tarnished by a woman’s dull acceptance of it as something not in the least extraordinary. He grinned and did not tell, and what did not occur to him was that if he offered no explanation she would supply one of her own. It is idiotic to tell a wife everything, but wise to tell nearly everything; especially when it is open to her to draw a false conclusion. Sam did not think a false conclusion open to her, because he still believed the best of Ada, because he was still in love. But falling out of love is desperately easy.