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But as the winter progressed, Keir began to experience the little moods of matrimony and to gather worries of his own.

Sybil was seeing very little of her husband. Even Saturdays were working days, and Sunday was the only day that was wholly theirs together. Keir would come home tired. He had what Sybil had begun to know as his working face, and often he would bring that face home with him and sit with it.

She was an affectionate and sweet-tempered creature, but she did ask of life that it should amuse her sometimes. For the first two months of their marriage she was happily absorbed in the new life of No. 3, but when she had all her curtains up and the furniture in order and had planted the little front garden and a strip of the back garden, she found herself wedded to routine. After one or two disasters she had made herself a fairly efficient cook, and when some of the polish had worn off the new adventure, she found that her domestic duties did not fill her day.

They were very long days. Keir disappeared on his bicycle at a quarter to eight, and he took his lunch with him. She did not see him again until half past five, and overtime took him away from her at half past six. He might return at half past eight or nine, tired and in no mood to play with a creature who was little more than a grown-up child.

She spoke to him a little hesitatingly about his work.

“You never seem to get any time off, Keir.”

He sat down with a book.

“Well, we’re lucky, kid.”

“I think you do too much. I don’t see much of you.”

He did put the book away and talk to her. He explained to her his theory of life from an ambitious working man’s point of view. He said that if you were keen to climb the ladder, you had to be pretty quick on the rungs, but that when you arrived at the top of the ladder, life might be easier.

“I want to get you out of this back alley.”

She understood.

“Yes, Keir, but I wish you didn’t have to work quite so hard. Supposing—”

She hesitated, and his eyes watched her.

“Supposing—what?”

“You got ill.”

He scoffed at the idea.

“I’m one of the wiry sort, kid. Work never killed anybody. It’s the loafers who rot. Finding the days a bit long?”

Yes, she confessed that she was. She was a sociable creature.

“You go out for walks, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Do you go and see the women at Darvels?”

“Yes.”

“Why shouldn’t we keep a dog? You could take the dog out.”

Yes, she could do that. But Keir seemed to forget about the dog, and it did not occur to him that she might like him to take her to the “pictures” once a week. Paragon Place went to the pictures even when it was on the dole. Certainly, she had her shopping to do, but her shopping was as domestic as her routine, and she had nothing supremely exciting to buy. The house was dressed, and so was she as a staid little housewife. But is any woman satisfied with sameness, especially in the matter of clothes? Sybil would find herself in Kingham High Street, and looking at hats and frocks and jumpers and all the cheap prettiness of those exciting windows. They were like a garden to her, and her own garden was not in flower. She had a passion for colour, and a woman’s tenderness for flowery things. She may have desired them as a child desires to rush in among bluebells and pick, but she was a good child, a sensitive child, and she was finding the finances of No. 3 a perpetual problem.

But one Saturday afternoon she fell, and so innocently. She came home feeling flushed and guilty and excited with a brown paper parcel, and in it a pretty, cheap, cretonne frock. It had cost her seven and sixpence, and she had paid for it out of the housekeeping money. Incidentally, the settlement of the grocer’s bill had had to be postponed.

She put on the frock and looked at herself in her mirror. What would Keir think of it? And wouldn’t she have to confess to Keir? And suddenly she was frightened, for hadn’t Keir said: “We shan’t have to spend much on clothes, Syb, for a year. We started as fresh as the house.” She took off the frock and hid it away in her wardrobe. She felt guilty.

Which—of course, was absurd, and a condemnation of Keir’s blindness, in that he was traversing the present with his attention fixed upon a hypothetical future. There were plenty of other men who would be ready to take his wife from him, or at least to enjoy her at the price of a few frocks. Other men turned to look at Sybil in the streets, and sometimes she was followed. Moreover, even her friends at Darvels—the cook and the parlour-maid—would have sympathized with and admonished Sybil.

“What, worried about a seven-and-sixpenny frock, and your chap working overtime! You’re being a bit too easy with him, my dear.”

Yet Sybil was worried about that frock, for the extravagance hastened the development of a financial crisis. Keir handed over thirty shillings a week for the housekeeping, and also the three and sixpence which was Sybil’s personal allowance, but as a manager Sybil was something of a dear muddler, and to balance her accounts she had had to throw her three and sixpence into the domestic scales. For a while the sacrifice had retrieved the situation, but in January Sybil found herself seriously in debt.

The deficit amounted to less than three pounds, but, being Sybil, she accused herself of being responsible. She had allowed Christmas to persuade her to very natural generosities, a new pipe for Keir, crackers, fruit, holly and mistletoe, and a very small turkey. Keir had given her a winter coat with a fur collar and cuffs, and she had felt both delighted and distressed over that coat. It was an accusation. And they had eaten turkey in various disguises for four days.

It somehow did not occur to Sybil that she should have confessed to Keir that she could not manage on thirty shillings a week. It was a confession of failure. Nine girls out of ten would have seized the situation by the horns and assumed the offensive.

“You’ll have to let me have another five shillings. What—I’m wasting money? Well, I like that!”

Nor was this Sybil’s only trouble. A far more dear and serious situation was developing, and Keir was curiously blind.

Inevitably, one or two of the tradesmen began to suggest that she should settle these outstanding accounts, and Sybil became frightened. What if Keir found out that she was in debt and did not find it out from her? And so she told him the truth.

“Keir, I’m so sorry. I haven’t been able to manage.”

She did not tell him that she had been eating bread and butter for her lunch for three weeks. Had she told him that at once and confessed to the other secret, Keir might not have behaved like the rather severe young husband. He was taking off his boots in front of the parlour fire, and it was a very small fire, just as Sybil’s offence was a very small one.

“What’s the matter, kid?”

“I find I can’t manage on thirty shillings.”

“Not in debt, are you?”

“Yes. Nearly three pounds. I’m so sorry.”

Keir happened to be very tired, and there had been a silly squabble in the workshop to irritate him.

“Three pounds on the wrong side?”

“Yes.”

She saw that he was annoyed, and instead of being easy with her he behaved rather like the severe Victorian husband. He told her to get out her books and demonstrate to him just where and how she had failed to make ends meet. He was coldly practical. He did not light a pipe and make her join him in front of the fire. He went and sat at the table and proceeded to hold an audit. He began to go into details.

“Butter. A pound of butter—twice—here—”

Looking rather pale and poignant, she tried to explain that she used a lot of butter in her cooking, and she had butter for lunch. She did not accuse Keir of being fond of butter, which he was.

“And tea. A pound of tea at two and eight. That seems—”

And suddenly she was in tears. She let herself go.

“I—I’ve only had bread and butter—for my lunch—And I’ve spent all my dress-money on the housekeeping. I know I’m—I’m rather new to it, but I do think it’s unkind of you—”

He sat and looked at her in shocked silence. Tears! And he was only trying to help her, to point this out.

“All right, Syb—all right.”

But to her his face still appeared severe and accusing, and abruptly she pushed back her chair and fled. She rushed up the stairs, still sobbing, leaving Keir to confront this emotional crisis.

If he was shocked, he had the sensitiveness to be shocked at himself. Could he claim to a complete authority on housekeeping? And she had been spending her own money, and starving herself in the middle of the day! Probably that damned woman next door had been sponging.

He rushed upstairs after her. He found the room in darkness. She was lying on the bed, weeping, as though the little heart of No. 3 was broken.

He knelt down by the bed. He was very much moved.

“Don’t, kid, don’t. I didn’t mean to be nasty. I know much less about the job than you do.”

He got his arms round her and drew her to him.

“I’m not a mean devil. Perhaps I’ve been a bit too keen on saving. It’s all right. I’ll give you a bit more.”

She clung to him. She put her wet face against his.

“Oh—Keir—there’s something else.”

“What? Tell me.”

“I think I’m going to have a baby. Things have stopped—and I’m feeling so sick in the morning.”

“My dear—!”

He was shocked—but chiefly because he somehow hadn’t noticed—Serious? Yes, this was serious. The shadow of his share in life seemed to deepen, and with it his compassion for this creature who clung to him and who was so easily hurt.

“You ought to have told me, kid. Or—I ought to have guessed. Good Lord, one can be damned selfish in trying to be too careful. Kiss me, Syb. I’m sorry.”

She held off for a moment.

“Sorry—because—”

“My dear, not that.—Because—I’ve hurt you—”

“Oh—Keir.”