in London, perfect health, a steadily-diminishing golf handicap,
and a host of friends in every walk of life, Bill had felt that it
would be absurd not to be happy and contented.

But Claire had made a difference. There was no question of that.
In the first place, she resolutely declined to marry him on four
hundred pounds a year. She scoffed at four hundred pounds a year.
To hear her talk, you would have supposed that she had been
brought up from the cradle to look on four hundred pounds a year
as small change to be disposed of in tips and cab fares. That in
itself would have been enough to sow doubts in Bill's mind as to
whether he had really got all the money that a reasonable man
needed; and Claire saw to it that these doubts sprouted, by
confining her conversation on the occasions of their meeting
almost entirely to the great theme of money, with its minor
sub-divisions of How to get it, Why don't you get it? and I'm sick
and tired of not having it.

She developed this theme to-day, not only on the stairs leading to
the grillroom, but even after they had seated themselves at their
table. It was a relief to Bill when the arrival of the waiter with
food caused a break in the conversation and enabled him adroitly
to change the subject.

'What have you been doing this morning?' he asked.

'I went to see Maginnis at the theatre.'

'Oh!'