"You're sure it can't do any harm?"
"Quite sure. You won't tell her?"
"All right, mater. But don't ask me to take the extra allowance."
"Very well. That shall be as you wish."
They came back, a little guilty, to the drawing-room. Aliette was laughing. Hearing her laugh, it seemed to Ronnie as though the tension of the morning had relaxed.
4
But the tension between them did not relax; rather, in those few days which followed Christmas, they came nearer to quarreling than ever before. The paying in of Julia's check raised the money question again. Ronnie wanted Aliette to use it immediately, to buy herself some clothes, to take a holiday. Aliette demurred.
"We can't stay here forever," she protested, eying the scratched wall-paper of their bedroom.
"I know, darling. But a boarding-house has its advantages. If we were to take a flat, who'd do the housework?"
"Caroline and I could manage that easily between us."