d here in my bath-robe."

His mind continued on the picture while he was dressing, and he was so
absorbed in it and in analyzing the effect it had had upon him, that his
servant spoke twice before he heard him.

"No," he answered, "I shall not dine here to-night." Dining at home was
with him a very simple affair, and a somewhat lonely one, and he avoided
it almost nightly by indulging himself in a more expensive fashion.

But even as he spoke an idea came to Stuart which made him reconsider
his determination, and which struck him as so amusing, that he stopped
pulling at his tie and smiled delightedly at himself in the glass before
him.

"Yes," he said, still smiling, "I will dine here to-night. Get me
anything in a hurry. You need not wait now; go get the dinner up as soon
as possible."

The effect which the photograph of Miss Delamar had upon him, and the
transformation it had accomplished in his room, had been as great as
would have marked the presence there of the girl herself. While
considering this it had come to Stuart, like a flash of inspiration,
that here was a way by which he could test the responsibilities and
conditions of married life without compromising either himself, or the
girl to whom he would suppose himself to be married.

"I will put that picture at the head of the table," he said, "and I will
play that it is she herself, her own, beautiful, lovely self, and I will
talk to her and exchange views with her, and make her answer me just as
she would were we actually married and settled." He looked at his watch
and found it was just seven o'clock. "I will begin now," he said, "and
I will keep up the delusion until midnight. To-night is the best time to
try the experiment because the picture is new now, and its influence
will be all the more real. In a few weeks it may have lost some of its
freshness and reality and will have become one of the fixtures in the
room."

Stuart decided that under these new conditions it would be more pleasant
to dine at Delmonico's, and he was on the point of asking the Picture
what she thought of it, when he remembered that while it had been
possible for him to make a practice of dining at that place as a
bachelor, he could not now afford so expensive a luxury, and he decided
that he had better economize in that particular and go instead to one of
the table d'hote restaurants in the neighborhood. He regretted not
having thought of this sooner, for he did not care t