ming since the beginning of the voyage
home. But to go beyond this, to ask the girl's father whether he
thought success likely, whether he could hold out hopes, was scarcely
permissible. It seemed a curious failure of tact in such a man as
Arnold Jacks.

The fact was that Arnold for the first time in his life, had turned
coward. Having drifted into a situation which he had always regarded as
undesirable, and had felt strong enough to avoid, he lost his head, and
clutched rather wildly at the first support within reach. That Irene
Derwent should become his wife was not a vital matter; he could
contemplate quite coolly the possibility of marrying some one else, or,
if it came to that, of not marrying anyone at all. What shook his
nerves was the question whether Irene would be sure to accept him.

Six months ago, he had no doubt of it. He viewed Miss Derwent with an
eye accustomed to scrutinise, to calculate (in things Imperial and
other), and it amused him to reflect that she might be numbered among,
say, half a dozen eligible women who would think it an honour to marry
him. This was his way of viewing marriage; it was on the woman's side a
point of ambition, a gratification of vanity; on the man a dignified
condescension. Arnold conceived himself a brilliant match for any girl
below the titled aristocracy; he had grown so accustomed to magnify his
place, to regard himself as one of the pillars of the Empire, that he
attributed the same estimate to all who knew him. Of personal vanity he
had little; purely personal characteristics did not enter, he imagined,
into a man's prospects of matrimony. Certain women openly flattered
him, and these he despised. His sense of fitness demanded a woman
intelligent enough to appreciate what he had to offer, and sufficiently
well-bred to conceal her emotions when he approached her. These
conditions Miss Derwent fulfilled. Personally she would do him credit
(a wife, of course, must be presentable, though in the husband
appearance did not matter), and her obvious social qualities would be
useful. Yet he had had no serious thought of proposing to her. For one
thing, she was not rich enough.

The change began when he observed the impression made by her upon
Trafford Romaine. This was startling. Romaine, the administrator of
world-wide repute, the man who had but to choose among Great Britain's
brilliant daughters (or so his worshippers believed), no sooner looked
upon Irene Derwent than