His scheme for spending money on her flattered her. But nevertheless it was a scheme for spending money. Two hundred and twenty-five pounds had dropped into his lap, and he must needs begin instantly to dissipate it. He could not keep it. That was Louis! She refused to see that the purchase of a bicycle was the logical consequence of her lessons. She desired to believe that by some miracle at some future date she could possess a bicycle without a bicycle being bought—and in the meantime was there not the borrowed machine?
Suddenly she yawned.
"Didn't you sleep well?" he demanded.
"Not very."
"Oh!"
She could almost see into the interior of his brain, where he was persuading himself that fatigue alone was the explanation of her peculiar demeanour, and rejoicing that the mystery was, after all, neither a mystery nor sinister.
"I say," he began between two puffs of a cigarette after breakfast, "I shall send back half of that money to Julian. I'll send the notes by registered post."
"Shall you?"
"Yes. Don't you think he'll keep them?"
"Supposing I was to take them over to him myself—and insist?" she suggested.