"
"My dear girl, I have invested heaps! You made me. But what is the use
of saving money when there are only ourselves to consider? We may as
well spend it, and have a good time. If there were kiddies to leave it
to, it would be different. I had so long of being impecunious, that I
particularly enjoy feeling bottomless! Besides, each year will bring in
more. This African book ought to be worth all the rest put together."
Helen was silent; but she sighed as she filled in Cook's cheque and
signed it. Ronald had spoken so lightly of the great disappointment of
their married life. It was always difficult to get Ronnie to take things
seriously. The fact was: he took _himself_ so seriously, that he was
obliged to compensate by taking everything and everybody else rather
lightly. No doubt this arrangement of relative values, made for success.
Ronnie's success had been very rapid, and very brilliant. He accepted it
with the unconscious modesty of the true artist; his work meaning
immeasurably more to him than that which his work brought him, either in
praise or pennies.
But Helen gloried in the praise, kept a watchful eye, so far as he would
let her, on the pennies; and herself ministered to the idea that all
else must be subservient, where Ronnie's literary career was concerned.
She was ministering to it now, at a personal cost known only to her own
brave heart.
CHAPTER IV
FIRELIGHT IN THE STUDIO
It was Ronnie's last evening in England.
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