The air of the place was hot and uncomfortable.

Burton for a moment half closed his eyes.

His whole being was in passionate revolt.
"Any necessity ?" Ellen repeated, half hysterically.

"Alfred Burton, let's have done with this shilly-shallying! After coming home regularly to your meals for six years, do you suppose you can disappear and not have people curious?
Do you suppose you can leave your wife and son and not a word said or a question asked?
What I want to know is this--are you coming home to Clematis Villa or are you not ?" "At present I am not," Burton declared, gently but very firmly indeed.
"Is it true that you've got the sack from Mr.Waddington ?" "Perfectly," he admitted.

"I have found some other work, though." She leaned forward so that one of those dyed feathers to which he objected so strongly brushed his cheek.
"Have you touched the money in the Savings Bank ?" she demanded.
"I have drawn out every penny of it to send you week by week," he replied, "but I am in a position now to replace it.