them."

"Get used to them!" his better half repeated, almost hysterically. "Do
you mean to say you are going about like that?"

"Something like it," Burton admitted.

"No silk hat, no tail coat?"

Burton shook his head gently.

"I trust," he said, "that I have finished, for the present, at any rate,
with those most unsightly garments."

"Come inside," Ellen ordered briskly.

They passed into the little sitting-room. Burton glanced around him
with a half-frightened sense of apprehension. His memory, at any rate,
had not played him false. Everything was as bad--even worse than he had
imagined. The suite of furniture which was the joy of his wife's heart
had been, it is true, exceedingly cheap, but the stamped magenta velvet
was as crude in its coloring as his own discarded tie. He looked at the
fringed cloth upon the table, the framed oleographs upon the wall, and
he was absolutely compelled to close his eyes. There was not a single
thing anywhere which was not discordant.

Mrs. Burton had not yet finished with the subject of clothes. The
distaste upon her face had rather increased. She looked her husband up
and down and her eyes grew bright with anger.