said, sharply. The reflection was blown out of him by the expansion of
his feelings. Seventy pounds a year on clothes!... He too was serious.

Now, James Ollerenshaw was not the first person whom Helen's passion for
clothes had driven into indiscretions. Her mother, for example, had done
battle with that passion, and had been defeated with heavy loss. A
head-mistress and a chairman of a School Board (a pompous coward) had
also suffered severely. And though Helen had been the victor, she had
not won without some injury to her nerves. Her campaigns and conquests
had left her, on this matter, "touchy"--as the word is used in the Five
Towns.

"I shall be very much obliged if you will not speak to me in that tone,"
said she. "Because I cannot permit it either from you or any other man.
When I venture to criticise your private life I shall expect you to
criticise mine--and not before. I don't want to be rude, but I hope you
understand, great-stepuncle."

The milk was within the twentieth of an inch of the brim. James
Ollerenshaw blushed as red as Helen herself had blushed at the
beginning of their acquaintance. A girl, the daughter of the chit Susan,
to address him so! She had the incomparable insolence of her mother.
Yes, thirty years ago Susan had been just as rude to him. But he was
thirty years younger then; he was not a sage of sixty then. He continued
to blush. He was raging. Indeed, it would be no exaggeration to assert
that his health was momentarily in peril. He glanced for an instant at
Helen, and saw that her nostrils were twitching. Then he looked
hurriedly away, and rose. The captain of the bowling club excusably
assumed that James was at length going to attack the serious business of
the day.