Part 11 (2/2)

”Oh, it's the bills,” she murmured, drawing in her breath a little uncertainly. ”To-day's the first, and they said they'd send them then.

But I didn't think there'd be such a lot of them. Still, I've had things at all those places. Well, anyway, he'll be glad to pay them all at once, without my teasing for money all the time,” she finished with resolute insistence, as she turned back to her work.

If, now that the time had come, and the bills lay before her in all their fearsome reality, Helen was beginning to doubt the wisdom of her financial system, she would not admit it, even to herself. And she still wore a determinedly cheerful face when her husband came home to dinner that night. She went into the kitchen as he began to open his mail--she was reminded of a sudden something that needed her attention. Two minutes later she nearly dropped the dish of potato salad she was carrying, at the sound of his voice from the doorway.

”Helen, what in Heaven's name is the meaning of these bills?” He was in the kitchen now, holding out a sheaf of tightly clutched papers in each hand.

Helen set the potato salad down hastily.

”Why, Burke, don't--don't look at me so!”

”But what does this mean? What are these things?”

”Why, they--they're just bills, I suppose. They _said_ they'd be.”

”Bills! Great Caesar, Helen! You don't mean to say that you _do_ know about them--that you bought all this stuff?”

Helen's lip began to quiver.

”Burke, don't--please don't look like that. You frighten me.”

”Frighten you! What do you think of _me_?--springing a thing like this!”

”Why, Burke, I--I thought you'd _like_ it.”

”_Like_ it!”

”Y-yes--that I didn't have to ask you for money all the time. And you'd have to p-pay 'em some time, anyhow. We had to eat, you know.”

”But, great Scott, Helen! We aren't a hotel! Look at that--'salad'--'salad'--'salad,'” he exploded, pointing a shaking finger at a series of items on the uppermost bill in his left hand. ”There's tons of the stuff there, and I always did abominate it!”

”Why, Burke, I--I--” And the floods came.

”Oh, thunderation! Helen, Helen, don't--please don't!”

”But I thought I was going to p-please you, and you called me a h-hotel, and said you a-abominated it!” she wailed, stumbling away blindly.

With a despairing e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n Burke flung the bills to the floor, and caught the sob-shaken little figure of his wife in his arms.

”There, there, I was a brute, and I didn't mean it--not a word of it.

Sweetheart, don't, please don't,” he begged. ”Why, girlie, all the bills in Christendom aren't worth a tear from your dear eyes. Come, _won't_ you stop?”

But Helen did not stop, at once. The storm was short, but tempestuous.

At the end of ten minutes, however, together they went into the dining-room. Helen carried the potato salad (which Burke declared he was really hungry for to-day), and Burke carried the bills crumpled in one hand behind his back, his other arm around his wife's waist.

That evening a remorseful, wistful-eyed wife and a husband with an ”I'll-be-patient-if-it-kills-me” air went over the subject of household finances, and came to an understanding.

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