"You see, Osborn, I want some money, please."

"All right, darling," he replied. "I'll give you a bit to go on with any time."

His ready hand jingled in his trousers pocket.

"It's for the tradesmen," said Marie; "I thought we'd pay every week."

"That's it," he enjoined, "be methodical. That's splendid of you."

"And this week it comes to two pounds ten."

Osborn's hand ceased its jingling; he withdrew it and sat still.

"Oh!..." he said in an altered voice, "does it? Well, all right."

"That doesn't include the coal, or--or allow for gas," murmured Marie.

"I expect the meter is ready for another half-crown."

Osborn looked at the sitting-room fire.

"Marie love," he said, clearing his throat, "I'm sorry, but--but will it always come to as much?"

"I hope not. No, I'll keep it down as much as I can, Osborn. But this week--"

"Was just a trial trip," said Osborn.

"You see, I told the tradespeople to send in weekly books and--and if I don't pay, they'll wonder."

"Don't fret yourself, kitten. I'll give it to you. But--"

Osborn put down his coffee cup in a final way.

"The fact is, Marie, you see--I don't want you to think me mean--"

"Oh, Osborn!"

"No, but the fact is, it just happens I'm able to give it to you to-day, because I've got a little in the bank. But our honeymoon and the first instalments on the furniture and your engagement ring ran through most of it, and--and so there's only a little left--about twenty pounds or so. My people lived on an annuity, you know; they only left me savings. Well, I thought it seemed snug to keep a balance of twenty pounds or so for emergencies, you know. But I'll draw a cheque on it for you with pleasure. Two pounds ten? All right."

"But, Osborn," said Marie, wide-eyed, "can't you give it to me out of your--"

"My screw doesn't come in till the end of the week," Osborn explained.

He flushed and for the first time looked at her a little haughtily.

"I'm sorry," she murmured; "perhaps we ought to make some arrangement and I'll keep to it."

"That's it," he said, still slightly uncomfortable; "now look here, dearie--"

"I'll get my account book and put it down."

"Does she have an account book?" said Osborn more lightly. "How knowing!"

Marie brought a book, and opened it upon her knee, and sat, pencil poised. She was very earnest. "How much ought we to spend?"

"You know what my screw is," said Osborn, as if unwilling to particularise.

Marie wrote at the top of her page, "Two hundred pounds."

"Forty pounds rent," she wrote next.

"And my odd expenses, lunch and clothes, and so on," said Osborn, "have never been less than sixty or seventy pounds, you know."

She wrote slowly. "Sixty to seventy pounds, expenses," when he stopped her.

"I'll have to curtail that!" he exclaimed.

In the ensuing silence both man and wife thought along the same track.

It suddenly gave him a nasty jar, to hit up against the necessity of stopping those pleasant little spendings, those odd drinks, those superior smokes, the last word in colourings for shirts and ties. Of course, such stoppage was well worth while. Oh, immensely so!

And she had a lump in her throat. She thought: "He'll find all this a burden. He's had all he wants; and so've I. I wish we were rich."

"Look here, darling," said Osborn. "How much'll food cost us? I don't know a great deal about these things, but if it's any standard to take--well, my old landlady used to give me rooms and breakfasts and dinners for thirty bob a week. Jolly good breakfasts and dinners they were, too!"

Marie murmured very slowly: "I'm not your old landlady." She imaged her, a working drab, saving, pinching, and making the best of all things. Compare Marie with Osborn's old landlady! "Besides," she murmured on, "there's me, too, now."

Osborn nodded. "Well," he said, "how much do you think?"

"Thirty shillings for _both_ of us per week," said Marie, inclined to cry. "That's better than your old landlady."

Osborn hastened to soothe her. "Look here," he protested, "don't fuss over it, there's a love. Very well, I'll give you thirty bob a week, but that's seventy-eight pounds a year. My hat! I say, can't you squeeze the gas out of it?"

"I _will_ get the gas out of it!" said Marie, with tightened lips.

"Great business!" said Osborn cheering; "put it down, darling."

So under the "Rent, forty pounds," she wrote, "Housekeeping, including gas, seventy-eight pounds."

"That's one hundred and eighteen pounds out of my two hundred," said Osborn, knitting his brows and staring into the fire.

"Coal?" whispered Marie, her pencil poised.

Osborn's stare at the fire took on a belligerent nature.

"I say!" he exclaimed, "we can't have two fires every day. It's simply not to be thought of."

"We'll sit in the dining-room in the evenings."

"Put down 'Coal, ten pounds,'" said Osborn grudgingly.

When Marie had put it down, she cast a sorrowing look round her dear little room. She would hardly ever use it, except in summer.