“Then who will have them?” she asked, with her hand on the lapel of his jacket. “You? That would be absurd. If I am your wife, I must keep your house.” “My dear,” said Jimmie, kissing her, “if we love each other, there will be no possibility of worries. I believe in God in a sort of way, and He has not given you to me to curse and wither your life.” “You could only bless and sanctify it,” she murmured. “Not I, dear; but our love.” Soothed, she raised a smiling face. “But still, I'll have to keep house. Do you think I would let you go to the butcher's? What would Aline say if you made such a proposal?” “She would peremptorily forbid him to take my orders,” he replied, laughing. “I am sure I should,” she said. It was growing late. She glanced at the wheezy tilted old Dutch clock in the corner, and spoke of departure. She reflected for a moment on the means of home-getting. To her lowered spirits the omnibus loomed like a lumbering torture-chamber. The consolation of a cab seemed cowardice. An inspiration occurred to her. She would walk; perhaps he would accompany her to Bryanston Square. He was enraptured at the suggestion. But could she manage the distance? “I should like to try. I am a good walker--and when we are outside,” she added softly, “we can talk a little of other matters.” It was a mild spring night, and the quiet stars shone benignantly upon them as they walked arm in arm, and talked of “other matters.” As she had needed a little while before the assurance of the absolute, so now she craved the spirituality of the man himself, the inner light of faith in the world's beauty, the sweetness, the courage--all that indefinable something in him which raised him, and could alone raise her, above the terrifying things of earth. She clung to his arm in a pathos of yearning for him to lead her upward and teach her the things of the spirit. Only thus lay her salvation. He, clean, simple soul, lost in the splendour of their love, expounding, as it chanced, his guileless philosophy of life and his somewhat childishly pagan religious convictions, was far from suspecting the battle into which he was being called to champion the side of righteousness. He went to sleep that night the most blissfully happy of men. Norma lay awake, a miserable woman. Chapter XXVII--A DINNER OF HERBS