"What things did he say?" Louis asked, disturbed. "Oh, never mind!" Louis became rather glum and obstinate. "The money will be perfectly safe," he insisted, "and our income pretty nearly doubled. I suppose I ought to know more about these things than you." "What's the use of income being doubled if you lose the capital?" Rachel snapped, now taking a horrid, perverse pleasure in the perilous altercation. "And if it's so safe why is he ready to give you so much interest?" The worst of women, Louis reflected, is that in the midst of a silly argument that you can shatter in ten words they will by a fluke insert some awkward piece of genuine ratiocination, the answer to which must necessarily be lengthy and ineffective. "It's no good arguing," he said pleasantly, and then repeated, "I ought to know more about these things than you." Rachel raised her voice in exasperation-- "I don't see it, I don't see it at all. If it hadn't been for me you'd have thrown up your situation--and a nice state of affairs there would have been then! And how much money would you have wasted on holidays and so on and so on if I hadn't stopped you, I should like to know!" Louis was still more astonished. Indeed, he was rather nettled. His urbanity was unimpaired, but he permitted himself a slight acidity of tone as he retorted with gentle malice-- "Well, you can't help the colour of your hair. So I'll keep my nerve." "I didn't expect to be insulted!" cried Rachel, flushing far redder than that rich hair of hers, and paced pompously out of the room, her face working violently. The door was ajar. She passed Mrs. Tams on the stairs, blindly, with lowered head. V In the conjugal bedroom, full of gas-glare and shadows, there were two old women. One was Mrs. Tams, ministering; the other was Rachel Fores, once and not long ago the beloved and courted girlish Louise of a chevalier, now aged by all the sorrow of the world. She lay in bed--in her bed nearest the fireplace and farthest from the door.