Of course the breakfast was a failure. Helen said that perhaps some people could get a meal of victuals on to the table, with a hungry man eyeing their every move, but she could not. Burke declared then that he really did not want any breakfast anyway, and he started to go; but as Helen only cried the more at this, he had to come back and comfort her--thereby, in the end, being both breakfastless and late to his work. Helen, after he had gone, spent a blissfully wretched ten minutes weeping over the sad fate that should doom such a child of light and laughter as herself to the somber rôle of martyr wife, and wondered if, after all, it would not be really more impressive and more soul-torturing-with-remorse for the cruel father-in-law, if she should take poison, or gas, or something (not disfiguring), and lay herself calmly down to die, her beautiful hands crossed meekly upon her bosom. Attractive as was this picture in some respects, it yet had its drawbacks. Then, too, there was the laurel wreath of praise due her later. She had almost forgotten that. On the whole, that would be preferable to the poison, Helen decided, as she began, with really cheerful alacrity, to attack the messy breakfast dishes. It was not alone the cooking that troubled the young wife during that first month of housekeeping. Everywhere she found pitfalls for her unwary feet, from managing the kitchen range to keeping the living-room dusted. And there was the money. Helen's idea of money, in her happy, care-free girlhood, had been that it was one of the common necessities of life; and she accepted it as she did the sunshine--something she was entitled to; something everybody had. She learned the fallacy of this, of course, when she attempted to earn her own living; but in marrying the son of the rich John Denby, she had expected to step back into the sunshine, as it were. It was not easy now to adjust herself to the change. She did not like the idea of asking for every penny she spent, and it seemed as if she was always having to ask Burke for money; and, though he invariably handed it over with a nervously quick, "Why, yes, certainly! I don't mean you to have to ask for it, Helen"; yet she thought she detected a growing irritation in his manner each time. And on the last occasion he had added a dismayed "But I hadn't any idea you could have got out so soon as this again!" And it made her feel very uncomfortable indeed. As if _she_ were to blame that it took so much butter and coffee and sugar and stuff just to get three meals a day! And as if it were her fault that that horrid cookbook was always calling for something she did not have, like mace, or summer savory, or thyme, and she had to run out and buy a pound of it! Didn't he suppose it took _some_ money to stock up with things, when one hadn't a thing to begin with?