After returning from the station, Honora sat for a long time at her window, looking out on the park.  The afternoon sunlight had the silvery tinge that comes to it in March; the red gravel of the centre driveway was very wet, and the grass of the lawns of the houses opposite already a vivid green; in the back-yards the white clothes snapped from the lines; and a group of children, followed by nurses with perambulators, tripped along the strip of sidewalk.

Why could not she feel the joys and desires of which Mrs. Holt had spoken?  It never had occurred to her until to-day that they were lacking in her.  Children!  A home!  Why was it that she did not want children?  Why should such a natural longing be absent in her?  Her mind went back to the days of her childhood dolls, and she smiled to think of their large families.  She had always associated marriage with children—­until she got married.  And now she remembered that her childhood ideals of the matrimonial state had been very much, like Mrs. Holt’s own experience of it:  Why then had that ideal gradually faded until, when marriage came to her, it was faint and shadowy indeed?  Why were not her spirit and her hopes enclosed by the walls in which she sat?

The housekeeping book came from Mrs. Holt the next morning, but Honora did not mention it to her husband.  Circumstances were her excuse:  he had had a hard day on the Exchange, and at such times he showed a marked disinclination for the discussion of household matters.  It was not until the autumn, in fact, that the subject of finance was mentioned between them, and after a period during which Howard had been unusually uncommunicative and morose.  Just as electrical disturbances are said to be in some way connected with sun spots, so Honora learned that a certain glumness and tendency to discuss expenses on the part of her husband were synchronous with a depression in the market.

“I wish you’d learn to go a little slow, Honora,” he said one evening.  “The bills are pretty stiff this month.  You don’t seem to have any idea of the value of money.”

“Oh, Howard,” she exclaimed, after a moment’s pause for breath, “how can you say such a thing, when I save you so much?”

“Save me so much!” he echoed.

“Yes.  If I had gone to Ridley for this suit, he would have charged me two hundred dollars.  I took such pains—­all on your account—­to find a little man Lily Dallam told me about, who actually made it for one hundred and twenty-five.”

It was typical of the unreason of his sex that he failed to be impressed by this argument.

“If you go on saving that way,” said he, “we’ll be in the hands of a receiver by Christmas.  I can’t see any difference between buying one suit from Ridley—­whoever he may be—­and three from Lily Dallam’s ’little man,’ except that you spend more than three times as much money.”

“Oh, I didn’t get three!—­I never thought you could be so unjust, Howard.  Surely you don’t want me to dress like these Rivington women, do you?”