There remained then only the matter of selection; and it was just here that Burke Denby learned something else. He learned that two people, otherwise apparently in perfect accord, could disagree most violently over the shape of a chair or the shade of a rug. Indeed, he would not have believed it possible that such elements of soul torture could lie in a mere matter of color or texture. And how any one with eyes and sensibilities could wish to select for one's daily companions such a mass of gingerbread decoration and glaring colors as seemed to meet the fancy of his wife, he could not understand. Neither could he understand why all his selections and preferences were promptly dubbed "dingy" and "homely," nor why nothing that he liked pleased her at all. As such was certainly the case, however, he came to express these preferences less and less frequently. And in the end he always bought what she wanted, particularly as the price on her choice was nearly always lower than the one on his--which was an argument in its favor that he found it hard to refute. Tractable as he was as to quality, however, he did have to draw a sharp line as to quantity; for Helen;--with the cheerful slogan, "Why, it's only twenty-five cents a week more, Burke!"--seemed not to realize that there was a limit even to the number of those one might spend--on sixty dollars a month. True, at the beginning she did remind him that they could "eat less" till they "got the things paid for," and that her clothes were "all new, anyhow, being a bride, so!" But she had not said that again. Perhaps because she saw the salesman turn his back to laugh, and perhaps because she was a little frightened at the look on her husband's face. At all events, when Burke did at last insist that they had bought quite enough, she acquiesced with some measure of grace. Burke himself, when the shopping was finished, drew a sigh of relief, yet with an inward shudder at the recollection of certain things marked "Sold to Burke Denby." "Oh, well," he comforted himself. "Helen's happy--and that's the main thing; and I shan't see them much. I'm away days and asleep nights." Nor did it occur to him that this was not the usual attitude of a supposedly proud bridegroom toward his new little nest of a home.