Some clothes arrived for him a few days later, and for the first time Eve saw her husband well clad. The build of them gave an added manliness to his slender figure.

The business of taking a theatre being successfully accomplished, Wynne assumed instantly the guise of a commander-in-chief. He spoke with an air of finality on all subjects, and wrapped himself in a kind of remoteness not infrequently to be observed in actor-managers.

Oddly enough, his new importance possessed Eve with a desire to laugh and ruffle his hair. Had he taken himself less seriously she would have done so.

Once she asked if he would not like to give her a part in the play.

“Heavens alive!” he said, “I’m pestered the day long with people who want engagements. Spare me from it at home.”

It was hardly a graceful speech, but it demonstrated his frame of mind with some accuracy. Perhaps he realized the remark was churlish, for he followed it with another:

“Besides, you’ll have plenty to do. We’re going to get out of this. I took a flat this afternoon.”

“Without saying a word to me?”

“I said all that was needed to the agent.”

“Yet you might have mentioned it.”