Not for money, mind you!  Incidentally, of course, he would earn money.  But he had already quite forgotten that life has its financial aspect.

So in the sitting-room in Werter Road, he walked uneasily to and fro, squeezing between the table and the sideboard, and then skirting the fireplace where Alice sat with a darning apparatus upon her knees, and her spectacles on—­she wore spectacles when she had to look fixedly at very dark objects.  The room was ugly in a pleasant Putneyish way, with a couple of engravings after B.W.  Leader, R.A., a too realistic wall-paper, hot brown furniture with ribbed legs, a carpet with the characteristics of a retired governess who has taken to drink, and a black cloud on the ceiling over the incandescent burners.  Happily these surroundings did not annoy him.  They did not annoy him because he never saw them.  When his eyes were not resting on beautiful things, they were not in this world of reality at all.  His sole idea about house-furnishing was an easy-chair.

“Harry,” said his wife, “don’t you think you’d better sit down?”

The calm voice of common sense stopped him in his circular tour.  He glanced at Alice, and she, removing her spectacles, glanced at him.  The seal on his watch-chain dangled free.  He had to talk to some one, and his wife was there—­not only the most convenient but the most proper person to talk to.  A tremendous impulse seized him to tell her everything; she would understand; she always did understand; and she never allowed herself to be startled.  The most singular occurrences, immediately they touched her, were somehow transformed into credible daily, customary events.  Thus the disaster of the brewery!  She had accepted it as though the ruins of breweries were a spectacle to be witnessed at every street-corner.

Yes, he should tell her.  Three minutes ago he had no intention of telling her, or any one, anything.  He decided in an instant.  To tell her his secret would lead up naturally to the picture which he had just finished.

“I say, Alice,” he said, “I want to talk to you.”

“Well,” she said, “I wish you’d talk to me sitting down.  I don’t know what’s come over you this last day or two.”

He sat down.  He did not feel really intimate with her at that moment.  And their marriage seemed to him, in a way, artificial, scarcely a fact.  He did not know that it takes years to accomplish full intimacy between husband and wife.

“You know,” he said, “Henry Leek isn’t my real name.”

“Oh, isn’t it?” she said.  “What does that matter?”

She was not in the least surprised to hear that Henry Leek was not his real name.  She was a wise woman, and knew the strangeness of the world.  And she had married him simply because he was himself, because he existed in a particular manner (whose charm for her she could not have described) from hour to hour.

“So long as you haven’t committed a murder or anything,” she added, with her tranquil smile.