There were some whose husbands could not sit by the domestic hearth ten minutes without dismal yawnings, men who depended upon newspapers for all their delight, men whose minds were always in the stable. Julian Wyllard was an ideal husband, who never yawned in a _tête-à-tête_ with his wife, who shared every joy and every thought with the woman of his choice. To-night, when they two sat down to the half-past, nine o'clock meal, with Bothwell, who was not much worse than a Newfoundland dog, for their sole companion, the wife's first question showed her familiarity with the business that had taken her husband to London. "Well, Julian, did you get the Raffaelle?" she asked. "No, dear. The picture went for just three times the value I had put upon it." "And you did not care to give such a price?" "Well, no. There are limits, even for a monomaniac like me. I had allowed myself a margin. I was prepared to give a hundred or two over the thousand which I had put down as the price of the picture; but when it went up to fifteen hundred I retired from the contest, and it was finally knocked down to Lamb, the dealer, for two thousand guineas. A single figure--a half-length figure of Christ bearing the cross, against a background of vivid blue sky. But such divinity in the countenance, such pathetic eyes! I saw women turn away with tears after they had looked at that picture." "You ought to have bought it," said Dora, who knew that her husband had a great deal more money than he could spend, and who thought that he had a right to indulge his own caprices. "My dearest, as I said before, there are limits," he answered, smiling at her enthusiasm. "Then you had your journey, and I had to endure the loss of your society for three dreary days, all for nothing?" said Dora. "Not quite for nothing. There was the pleasure of seeing a very fine collection of pictures, and some magnificent Limoges enamels. I succeeded in buying you a little Greuze. I am told by French art-critics that it is a low thing to admire Greuze, the sign of a vulgar mind. He is the painter of the _bourgeois_, the _épicier_. But, for all that, you and I have agreed to like Greuze; so I bought this little picture for your morning-room. I got it for five hundred and fifty, and I believe it is a genuine bit in the painter's best manner." "How good you are to me!" exclaimed Dora, getting up and going over to her husband.