For five years, more or less, Lady Jim had been clothed as the lilies of the field, and had been supplied with nutriment by the lineal descendants of Elijah's ravens; but now things were coming to a crisis. The long lane down which she had marched as Solomon-in-all-his-glory was about to take a turning, and Lady Jim did not relish the new route. It led to second-rate lodgings at home or abroad, to the lack of frocks and a diminution of other women's envy, to the loss of a thousand and one luxuries which had become necessaries, and to a self-denying ordinance of which she did not approve. Something must be done to prevent the necessity of turning down this penurious alley, but when Lady Jim set out on her shopping excursion she did not very well see how she could avoid the almost inevitable. Needless to say, Leah had a trifle more in her purse than the one sovereign she had admitted the existence of to Jim. To be precise, she possessed ten pounds, and that had to last a week as pocket-money. She felt very hard up as she stepped into her motor-car and whirled down the street. Had she possessed the lamp of Aladdin she would have made its slave bankrupt; and to think that seven days of desiring pretty things should be supported on ten pounds! The beggar at the gate of Dives could not have been poorer. But there was no sign of penury on the surface. The unpaid sables Lady Jim wore were the best that the animal could give; the fur rug over her feet had cost enough to keep a poor family for six months in food and fire, though she, or rather Jim, was being dunned for the payment of that; the motor-car was one of the best and newest, and Lady Jim drove it with the reckless speed of a woman who thinks the world was created so that she should play Juggernaut. Having plenty of courage, and a love for playing with death, Leah was a daring and skilful driver. Before now she had swept round a corner with two wheels beating the air. But she had not as yet crushed any one under the said wheels, and she ascribed this luck to her peacock's feather. Like all who have small belief in the Deity, Lady Jim was superstitious in a small way. Her fetish was a peacock's feather, and so long as she had one about her, nothing, so she averred, could possibly go wrong. There was one now thrust into the left-hand lamp of the car, and the panels were painted with the same feathers, until they resembled the tail of Juno's favourite bird. Lady Jim might forget to go to church, or to say her prayers, or to thank God, but she never forgot the necessary peacock's feather which was to ensure prosperity and safety. She was reported to make genuflections before a shrine of this sort, but the report was probably exaggerated. No one knew what kind of a Baal she worshipped, but it is ridiculous to say that she did not adore at least one, for she was, in her way, a very religious woman.