CHAPTER VII
STUMBLING-BLOCKS
Mrs. Burke Denby was a little surprised at the number of letters directed to her husband in the morning mail that first day of November, until she noticed the familiar names in the upper left-hand corners of several of the envelopes.
"Oh, it's the bills," she murmured, drawing in her breath a little uncertainly. "To-day's the first, and they said they'd send them then. But I didn't think there'd be such a lot of them. Still, I've had things at all those places. Well, anyway, he'll be glad to pay them all at once, without my teasing for money all the time," she finished with resolute insistence, as she turned back to her work.
If, now that the time had come, and the bills lay before her in all their fearsome reality, Helen was beginning to doubt the wisdom of her financial system, she would not admit it, even to herself. And she still wore a determinedly cheerful face when her husband came home to dinner that night. She went into the kitchen as he began to open his mail—she was reminded of a sudden something that needed her attention. Two minutes later she nearly dropped the dish of potato salad she was carrying, at the sound of his voice from the doorway.
"Helen, what in Heaven's name is the meaning of these bills?" He was in the kitchen now, holding out a sheaf of tightly clutched papers in each hand.
Helen set the potato salad down hastily.
"Why, Burke, don't—don't look at me so!"
"But what does this mean? What are these things?"
"Why, they—they're just bills, I suppose. They said they'd be."