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and went to bed.
    He took three tablets of his allonal to make him sleep.
    He rose at eight next morning, had a bath and dressed, and ordered coffee in his room. He was seated at his breakfast when he heard a light knock on the outer door. He went to open it; his wife was there.
    “Come in,” he said. “Have some coffee?”
    She shook her head, and fumbled with a cigarette. He lit it for her.
    “You don’t mind if I finish mine?”
    She sat down in a chair, and watched him while he ate.
    “Well, Henry,” she said at last. “Where do we go from here?”
    He set down his cup and turned to her. “That’s up to you, my dear.”
    He considered for a moment. “I don’t know what you’re doing here at all, and I’m not sure that I want to know. I didn’t come here trailing you, or anything like that. I came on business yesterday, and saw you in the dining-room with Ali Said.”
    She said, “I might have known you came on business. You wouldn’t take a day from that for me, would you?”
    He said, “You’re probably right. In all these sort of things, there are faults on both sides. I know I’veworked long hours for the last two years. But things aren’t easy with this slump …” He always felt helpless in his dealings with Elise. In most marriages, he thought, the economic tie must make things easier; the wife had her job for which she drew her pay; she could not lightly give it up. Both husband and wife then had to work, he in the office and she in the home. With Elise it was different. She had her own money—plenty of it; a dissolution of their marriage would mean no material loss to her, no unavoidable discomfort. She was not dependent on her job for her security; therefore she took it lightly. To hold her he would have to live a great deal of her life, an idle life to be spent with idle people, following the fashion. It would be possible for him to do so; he had money in plenty to give up his work and retire. But he was only forty-three years old; his work was dear to him. Surely there was some compromise for them?
    He said, “I want you to pack your things and come back home with me to-day. When we get home, I’m going to make some changes.”
    She blew a long cloud of cigarette smoke. “What are they?”
    “I’m going to sell the house. We’re going to live in the country.”
    “Are we, indeed? What part of the country?”
    “Somewhere not far from London—Beaconsfield—Dorking—that sort of distance. On my part, I shall spend less time in London, and more at home. We might get some hunting in the winter.”
    “Anything else?”
    He met her eyes, mocking him. “Yes,” he saidsavagely. “A total exclusion of Prince Ali from your list of friends, and Cathcart, and the Cohens. I’ll have no more of them.”
    She laughed a little. “I suppose I’ve brought that on myself.”
    “I suppose you have,” he said.
    “It’s a pretty joyous sort of life that you’ve sketched out for me,” she observed. “You evidently don’t trust me in London, so I’m to live in the suburbs. If I’m good you’ll take me out with the suburban drag on Saturday mornings. I’m to give up all my friends, and sit in the country alone and grow pansies.”
    “That’s it exactly,” said Warren. “Those are my terms if we’re going on together. I won’t go on as we are. And on my part, I’ll do everything I can to make you happy—on those lines.”
    “And if I don’t accept your terms?”
    “I hope you will. If you don’t, I shall divorce you.”
    There was a little silence.
    “Well,” she said, “you’d better go ahead and do it.”
    “You wouldn’t like to have another try at carrying on together?”
    She shook her head. “You don’t want me, and you know it. All you want is your work. That’s all you ever think about, your work and your business friends. It’s not as if you had to work as you do in order to live. You do it because that’s what you like. You’re never at home because