It suited Stephen Somerfield, too.
He escorted her everywhere, enjoying the luxury of her car, executing her commissions, buying theatre tickets and planning facilities for her continual round of pleasure.
But she never made the signal mistake of sharing her purse with the man. There were no "perquisites" to be gleaned, save an occasional lonely "fiver" handed over for Bridge at her house.
She paid his expenses only when with him; and, when she died suddenly, after a bare two days' illness, every penny of her money went back to her husband's people.
Before this disaster fell, Stephen had been caught up in the movement, then new, of Woman's Suffrage, in his liege lady's train.
He turned it to account in the lean days that followed, glad to augment his slender income by becoming the paid secretary to one of the most prominent branches.
Here fortune sent him Mrs. Uniacke, eager, hypnotized in turn by the shrill cry of woman's wrongs, but ignorant of business matters, glad to turn to him for advice. Little by little he strengthened the tie, slipping into her daily life; inwardly sore at the "chronic ill-luck" which forced him to accept her poor hospitality after a course of Ritz dinners, yet too shrewd to miss the economy, under the present heavy cloud.
But nothing could check his love of show. He ran up tailor bills galore; hatters and bootmakers learned to know him, credit was failing everywhere. Now the day of reckoning had dawned, tradesmen's patience at an end.
Something must be done at once. He swore moodily at his bills.
He got up from his seat at the table, went to the cupboard, found a cork-screw and opened a bottle of brandy there with this typical reflection: