justifies your labour; she crowns your life by spending. You married
her so that she might spend. You wanted some one to spend, and it was
understood that she should fill the situation. She was brought up to
spend, and you knew that she was brought up to spend. Spending is her
vocation. And yet you turn round on her and complain, "She only thinks
of spending."

"Yes," you say, "but there is such a thing as moderation." There is; I
admit it. The word "extravagance" is no idle word in the English
language. It describes a quality which exists. Let it be an axiom that
Mrs. Omicron is human. Just as the tendency to get may grow on you,
until you become a rapacious and stingy money-grubber, so the tendency
to spend may grow on her. One has known instances. A check-action must
be occasionally employed. Agreed! But, Mr. Omicron, you should choose
a time and a tone for employing it other than you chose on this
evening that I have described. A man who mixes up jewelled rings with
undertone mutton and feeble coffee is a clumsy man.

Exercise your imagination to put yourself in the place of Mrs.
Omicron, and you will perceive that she is constantly in the highly
delicate difficulty of having to ask for money, or at any rate of
having to suggest or insinuate that money should be given to her. It
is her right and even her duty to ask for money, but the foolish,
illogical creature--like most women, even those with generous and
polite husbands--regards the process as a little humiliating for
herself. You, Mr. Omicron, have perhaps never asked for money. But
your imagination will probably be able to make you feel how it feels
to ask for money. A woman whose business in life it is to spend money
which she does not and cannot earn may sometimes have to face a
refusal when she asks for money. But there is one thing from which she