“It is a little present from thy woman,” she said.  “In future thou wilt have no excuse—­Sit down.  Marie!”

“Madame?”

“Take off the boots of Monsieur.”

Marie knelt.

Christine found the new slippers.

“And now this!” she said, after he had washed and used the new brushes, producing a black house-jacket with velvet collar and cuffs.

“How tired thou must be after thy day!” she murmured, patting him with tiny pats.

“Thou knowest, my little one,” she said, pointing to the gas-stove in the bedroom fireplace.  “For the other rooms a gas-stove—­I am indifferent.  But the bedroom is something else.  The bedroom is sacred.  I could not tolerate a gas-stove in the bedroom.  A coal fire is necessary to me.  You do not think so?”

“Yes,” he said.  “You are quite right.  It shall be seen to.”

“Can I give the order?  Thou permittest me to give the order?”

“Certainly.”

In the drawing-room she cushioned him well in the best easy-chair, and, sitting down on a pouf near him, began to knit like an industrious wife who understands the seriousness of war.  Nothing escaped the attention of that man.  He espied the telegram.

“What’s that?”

“Ah!” she cried, springing up and giving it to him.  “Stupid that I am!  I forgot.”

He looked at the address.

“How did this come here?” he asked mildly.

“Marie brought it—­from the Albany.”

“Oh!”

He opened the telegram and read it, having dropped the envelope into the silk-lined, gilded waste-paper basket by the fender.

“It is nothing serious?” she questioned.

“No.  Business.”

He might have shown it to her—­he had shown her telegrams before—­but he stuck it into his pocket.  Then, without a word to Christine, he rang the bell, and Marie appeared.

“Marie!  The telegram—­why did you bring it here?”

“Monsieur, it was like this.  I went to monsieur’s flat to fetch two aprons that I had left there.  The telegram was on the console in the ante-chamber.  Knowing that monsieur was to come direct here, I brought it.”

“Does Mrs. Braiding know you brought it?”

“Ah!  As for Mrs. Braiding, monsieur—­”

Marie stopped, disclaiming any responsibility for Mrs. Braiding, of whom she was somewhat jealous.  “I thought to do well.”

“I am sure of it.  But surely you can see you have been indiscreet.  Don’t do it again.”

“No, monsieur.  I ask pardon of monsieur.”

Immediately afterwards he said to Christine in a gay, careless tone: 

“And this gas-stove here?  Is it all right?  Have we tried it?  Let us try it.”

“The weather is warm, dearest.”

“But just to try it.  I always like to satisfy myself—­in time.”

“Fusser!” she exclaimed, and ignited the stove.

He gazed at it absently, then picked up a cigarette and, taking the telegram from his pocket, folded it into a spill and with it lit the cigarette.