dead. A German Jew stock-broker, dear, or a Maharajah of ‘something-core,’ or a soap-boiler without h’s—anyone will do if he has enough money! I’d rather not, of course, but it’s the only way! Dear people, will you all come to my wedding?”

“Claudia, you are impossible! You ought to be ashamed!”

“Yes, I should, but I’m not! Isn’t it horrid of me? If I blow very loudly, do you think I shall go off this season?”

“Claudia speaks in her usual highly coloured fashion, but there’s no doubt about her aim. She wants money, and, incidentally, all that it can buy.—Adventure. Success. Comfort. Money. We are getting plenty of variety! Rupert, what are you going to give us?”

The man with the tired eyes and the firm chin leaned forward in his seat, with his elbows resting on his knees and his chin supported in the hollow of his hands. The firelight showed the delicate network of lines round eyes and mouth, the modelling of the long curved lips.

“I—want—Love!” he said quietly, and a stir of amazement passed round the circle of listeners. He looked round and smiled, a slow, amused smile. “Surprised, aren’t you? Didn’t expect that from me; but it isn’t as simple as it sounds. I’m not thinking of Frank’s ‘nice’ wife, and a house in the suburbs, the usual midsummer madness followed by settling down to live—stodgily!—ever after. I’m speaking of something big, primal, overwhelming; something that lasts. Love comes to most men in the course of their lives, a modicum of love. The dullest dog has his day, a day uplifted, glorified, when he walks like a god. Afterwards he looks back upon it from his padded arm-chair, and smiles—a smug smile. It was a moment of madness; now he is sane, that’s his point of view; but mine happens to be precisely the opposite! To me those moments are life, the only life worth living. The rest is a sleep. If I could have what I wish, I’d choose to love, to be loved, like the great masters in the art, the lovers par excellence of the ages. I’d be willing, if needs be, to sacrifice everything else, and count the world well lost. It would be a love not only of the senses, but of the mind, of the soul, and so it would live on, undimmed by the passing of youth. That is my dream, you understand! As regards expectation, I don’t share Mrs Ingram’s optimism. It’s not only myself who is involved, you see. It is another person, and my desires are so absurdly in excess of my deserts. Who am I that I should expect the extraordinary?”

He ceased, and again the silence fell. The girl in blue bit hard on her under lip and shrank back into the shadow; the girl who had wished for adventure drew a quick gasp of excitement; the woman who had lived, and gained her desire, drew a quivering sigh. Silent, immovable, in the shadow of the settle, sat the girl in white.

“Oh, dear!” cried Claudia suddenly. “If he only had money! I’d adore beyond all things to be worshipped on a pedestal! Rupert, if an old aunt dies, and leaves you her millions,—would I do?”

That was the best of Claudia, her prattle bridged so many awkward gaps! In an instant the tension had eased, and a general laugh broke the silence. Rupert laughed with the rest, no whit embarrassed by the question.

“Not at all, Beauty,” he said calmly. “I need a great passion in return, and you are incapable of it. Most women are! I doubt if in the whole course of my life I have met one who could rise to it,” and he cast a quick glance round the group until his eyes met those of his hostess.

“Very few men would understand what you are talking about, or, if they did, would desire so demanding a romance,” Mrs Ingram told him. “The man who does will find his mate, but—he must pay the price! So we have come to Love at last! I thought it would have taken an earlier place.”

“Mrs Ingram,” cried Claudia boldly, “was that what you wished for yourself? You told us you had proved your own theories. Did you wish for love?”

“No!” said the hostess quietly. “It was not love.” She glanced across the hearth as she spoke, and her eyes and her husband’s met, and exchanged a message.

The man with the magnetic eyes burst hastily into the conversation, as if anxious to divert attention to himself.

“I suppose I come next? I’ve been questioning myself while you’ve all been talking. It’s difficult to condense one’s ambitions into just one word, but I’ve got it at last—or the one which most nearly expresses what I mean. Danger! That’s it. That’s what I want. I’m fed up with monotony, and convention, and civilisation, but I go a step farther than Miss Juliet, for I demand, so to speak, the superlative of adventure. Risk, uncertainty, the thrill, the fear! I want to take my life in my hands, to get out into the open of life, and come face to face with the unknown. Put me down as ‘Danger,’ Mrs Ingram, and when you think over all the wishes, mine really seems the easiest of fulfilment. There’s plenty of trouble knocking around, and a man need not have far to search. I think, on the whole, I’ll absolve my friends from that promise to help! It might land them in disagreeable consequences!”

“But are we expected to wish you good luck? It really is an invidious position!” cried the girl in blue. She sighed, and twisted her fingers together in her lap.

“It’s coming to my turn,” she continued, “and I’m so horribly embarrassed, for my confession sounds the most selfish of all: I want just to be happy! That’s all! But it means so much, and it’s such a difficult thing to accomplish. Don’t anyone dare to tell me that it’s in my own power, and must be manufactured inside, because I’ve heard it so often, and it’s not true! I need outside things, and I can’t be happy till I get them. But I only want them so that I can be happy, and I’d give them up in a minute if other things would have the same effect. Don’t I express myself lucidly and well? I’m a sweet, tender-hearted little girl, dear friends, and I ask for so little! Kind contributions gratefully received. Mrs Ingram dear, you won’t preach, will you?”

“Not for the world,” cried Mrs Ingram laughing. “Why shouldn’t you be happy, Meriel dear? I am sure we all wish you a short quest, and a rich harvest! And what does Norah want?”

Mrs Ingram’s voice was a trifle apologetic as she looked towards where Norah Boyce sat, turning her head from side to side to listen to the pronouncements of her fellow guests, sometimes serious, sometimes smiling, but always with that little wistful pucker of the brows which of late had become a settled expression. It seemed at the moment as if it would be more sensible to inquire what Norah did not want, for a very harvest of last straws had combined to break her back within the last two years. She was an orphan, but having been possessed of a moderate, but comfortable income (five hundred a year to wit), had contrived to lead a sufficiently full and agreeable life during the half-dozen years which had elapsed since she had left school. She paid visits, she travelled abroad with congenial friends, she had a room at a ladies’ club, and stayed frequently as paying guest with such of her friends as were not overburdened with this world’s wealth. Everyone was pleased to entertain a pretty, particularly sweet-tempered girl, and to receive five pounds a week for the privilege, for there was no meanness about Norah, she looked upon money simply as a means to an end, spent lavishly, and was as ignorant as a doll as to the investments from which her income arose. She knew by reference to her bank-book that a cheque for about a hundred pounds was due in December, and was convenient for Christmas gifts, and that another—about fifty—arrived in time for the July sales. She knew that her receipts varied, but that, of course, was the result of