Osborn dreamed.

"I'll see you right home," said Rokeby.

"And you'll come in, and have a drink."

"Thanks. Perhaps I will. Haven't you got a trousseau to show me?"

"Get out, you fool!"

"What do chaps feel like, I wonder," said Rokeby, "when the day of judgment is so near?"

"I shan't tell you, you damned scoffer!"

"Well, well," said Rokeby, "I've seen lots of nice fellows go under this same way. It always makes me very sorry. I do all I can in the way of preventive measures, but it's never any good, and there's no cure. Ab-so-lutely none. There's no real luck in the business, either, as far as I've seen, though of course some are luckier than others."

"Did you mention luck?" Osborn exclaimed, from his dream. "Don't you think I'm lucky? I say, Desmond, old thing, don't you think I'm one of the most astonishingly lucky fellows on God's earth?"

"You ought to know."

"Oh, come off that silly pedestal of pretence. Cynicism's rotten. Marriage is the only life."

"'Never for me!'" Rokeby quoted Julia.

"Awful girl!" said Osborn, referring to her briefly. "'Orrid female. What?"

"Very handsome," said Rokeby.

"Handsome! I've never seen it. She's not to be compared to Marie, anyway. You haven't answered my question. Don't you think I'm lucky?"

"Yes, you are," replied Rokeby sincerely, turning to look at him, "for any man to be as happy as you seem to be even for five minutes is a great big slice of luck to be remembered."

"Marie's a wonderful girl. She can do absolutely anything, I believe. It seems incredible that a girl with hands like hers can cook and sew, but she can. Isn't it a wonder?"

"It sounds ripping."

They walked on in silence, Osborn back up in his clouds. At last he awaked to say:

"Well, here we are. You'll come in?"

"Shall I?"

"Do. I shan't have so many more evenings of—"

"Freedom—"

"—Of loneliness, confound you! Come in!"

Rokeby followed him into his rooms, on the second floor. A good fire was burning, but they were just bachelor rooms full of hired—and cheap—furniture. As Osborn cast off his overcoat and took Rokeby's, he glanced around expressively.

"You should see the flat. You will see it soon. All Marie's arrangement, and absolutely charming."

"Thanks awfully. I'll be your first caller."

"Well, don't forget it. What'll you have?"

"Whiskey, please."

"So'll I."

Osborn gave Desmond one of the two armchairs by the fire, and took the other himself. Another silence fell, during which Rokeby saw Osborn smiling secretly and involuntarily to himself as he had seen other men smile. The man was uplifted; his mind soared in heaven, while his body dwelt in a hired plush chair in the sitting-room of furnished lodgings. Rokeby took his drink, contented not to interrupt; he watched Osborn, and saw the light play over his face, and the thoughts full of beauty come and go. At length, following the direction of some thought, again it was Osborn who broke the mutual quiet, exclaiming:

"I've never shown you her latest portrait!"

"Let's look. I'd love to."

The lover rose, opened the drawer of a writing-table, and took out a photograph, a very modern affair, of most artistic mounting. He handed it jealously to Desmond and was silent while the other man looked. The girl's face, wondrously young and untroubled, frail, angelic, rose from a slender neck and shoulders swathed in a light gauze cloud. Her gay eyes gazed straight out. Rokeby looked longer than he knew, very thoughtfully, and Osborn put his hand upon the portrait, pulled it away as jealously as he had given it, and said:

"They've almost done her justice for once."

"Top-hole, old man," Rokeby replied sympathetically.

CHAPTER II
IRREVOCABLE

When Osborn dressed for his wedding he felt in what he called first-class form. He thought great things of life; life had been amazingly decent to him throughout. It had never struck him any untoward blow. The death of his parents had been sadness, certainly, but it was a natural calamity, the kind every sane man expected sooner or later and braced himself for. His mother had left him a very little money, and his father had left him a very little money; small as the sum total was, it gave a man the comfortable impression of having private means. He paid the first instalments on the dream-flat's furniture with it, and there was some left still, to take Marie and him away on a fine honey-moon, and to brighten their first year with many jollities. His salary was all right for a fellow of his age. Marie was not far wrong when she said that they were starting "awfully well."

Osborn sang:

That latest thing in revue songs fitted the case to a fraction. He was the luckiest man in the whole great round world.

Osborn was pleased with his reflection in the glass. For his wedding he had bought his first morning-coat and silk hat. He had been as excited as a girl. He had a new dress-suit, too, and a dinner-jacket from the best tailor in town, ready packed for travelling. He had been finicking over his coloured shirts, handkerchiefs, and socks; a set of mauve, a set of blue, a set of grey; the brown set with the striped shirt; they were all awf'ly smart. Marie was so dainty, she liked a man to be smart, too. All he wanted was to please her.

Rokeby came early, as quiet and lacklustre as ever. He sat down in the obvious lodging-house bedroom, lighted a cigarette and looked at Osborn without a smile. He prepared himself to be bored and amazed; weddings, tiresome as they were, always amazed him. And he was prepared, too, for a settled insanity in Osborn until—

"I wonder how long he'll be?" Rokeby thought.

"I've finished packing," said Osborn, clapping his old brushes together; the new ones lay among the new suits. "It's time we started, almost, isn't it?"

"Not by an hour," Rokeby answered, consulting a wrist watch. "Have you breakfasted?"

"Not yet."

"You'd better, hadn't you?"

Osborn was concerned with the set of the new coat over his fine shoulders.

"Breakfast was on the table when I came through," added Rokeby.

"Was it?" replied Osborn absently.

Rokeby took his friend's arm, piloted him with patient firmness into the sitting-room, and pulled out a chair.

Osborn ate and drank spasmodically. Between the spasms he hummed under his breath:

Rokeby smoked several cigarettes.

"How long'll it take us to get to the church?" Osborn asked presently, with his eye on the clock.

"Ten minutes, about. We'll walk."

"Desmond, I say, I wouldn't like to be late."

"I'll look after that. I've escorted a good many fellows to the tumbril."

"Desmond, that nonsense of yours gets boring."

"All right! Sorry."

"Let's start," said Osborn.

So they started on their short walk. The pale gold sun of a splendid crisp morning hailed them and the streets were bright. Already, though they arrived early at the church, several pews were full of whispering guests who turned and looked and smiled, with nods that beckoned, at the two young men.

"What'll we do?" Osborn whispered.

"Hide," said Rokeby.

They hid in a cold, stony little place which Rokeby said was a vestry, and there they waited while interminable minutes drifted by. Osborn fell into a dream from which he was only fully roused by finding himself paraded side by side