"They seem to represent gold, you extravagant child." "Dollie Maynard had them; she kind of crowed over mine last day we had bridge here. I must have things same as other people, Bert. I can't be shabby and dowdy." "So it seems." He opened several other letters. "Well, we can just do it, girlie, so it doesn't matter. Breakfast now. I was working hard this morning." "And I was eating strawberries. Bobbie sent them. There are eggs for you." "Once upon a time laid by a hen," he said resignedly. "Got the stalls for to-night. That blue gown suits you, Butterfly." "It ought to," she said, coming in to give him his breakfast. "It cost fifteen guineas." Bertie Carteret was adjutant of volunteers in London; he had taken it to please Esmé, who would not endure the idea of a country station in Ireland. Now Carteret was going abroad, his adjutancy over. His battalion was in South Africa; he was to join it there until he got something else to do. Esmé flashed out at the thought of the place. "Dust and bottled butter; black servants and white ants. No thank you, Bertie--I won't go." No one expected sacrifice from Esmé; she was too pretty, too brilliant, to endure worry or trouble. Bertie Carteret smiled at her. She should stay at home. They would soon get something else to do, and he would come back. Esmé bent across to him that day, her face set in unwonted thought. "Just think if your Uncle Hugh had no sons," she said, "he'd leave you everything. We'd be rich then." Bertie laughed. Two boys made barrier between him and hopes of the Carteret money. A pleasure-loving pair, absolutely happy in their way. Well enough off to have all they wanted, and pleasant enough to get the rest from their friends. They chattered through breakfast of engagements, parties, trips, of days filled to the brim. Bertie was lunching at the Bath Club. Esmé, with her friend, Denise Blakeney, at the Carlton. "And oh, Bert--ring up those fruiterer people. Dollie dines here to-morrow. We must have strawberries, and asparagus--the fat kind--and peas, Bert. She had them--Dollie. I don't want her to go away and talk of 'those poor Carterets and their mutton chops'--and send in matron glaces, Bert, and sweets from Buzzard's, will you, and some Petit Fours for tea." "Anything else?" he said. "Esmé, do you know, my Butterfly, that we spend every penny we have, and a little more?" With a laugh she slipped a supple arm about his neck. "And why not?" she said lightly--"why not, Sir Croaker?" He drew her to his knee, kissing her firm neck, her soft arms--on fire to her touch. "She was a witch," he told her, "and a Butterfly, hovering over a man's heart." She should have her strawberries, her sweeties. "And--what is it?" For Esmé had turned white, put her hand to her throat, a sudden nausea seizing her.