“I’ll hang the bedroom pictures,” he said.

“No, no, you must get begone to your book.”

“You are in a desperate hurry to see me at that book.”

“You spoke as if you were so anxious to begin it.”

“So I am. Did I say I wasn’t?”

He marched off to the study, banging the drawing-room door. An hour or so afterward I took him his tea. He had left his study door open so that I could see him on the couch before I entered the room. When he heard the rattle of the tea-things he jumped up and strode to the study table, where, when I entered, he pretended to be busy writing.

“How are you getting on, dear?” I asked, with a sinking at the heart.

“Excellently, my love, excellently.”

I looked at him so reproachfully that he blushed.

“I think,” said he, when he had drunk the tea, “that I have done enough for one night. I mustn’t overdo it.”