f the intellectual, they are still successful in
their demonstration. No one has a better eye for a horse, or is a finer
shot. The best at driven grouse for your age, my boy, I have ever seen.
You are full of force, Michael, and ought to do some decent
thing--instead of which you spoil the whole outlook by fooling after
this infernal woman--and you have not now the pluck to cut the Gordian
knot. She will drag you to the lowest depths----"

Then he laughed. "And only think of that voice in one's ears all day
long! I would rather marry old Bessie at the South Lodge. She is
eighty-four, she tells me, and would soon leave you a widower."

The first ray of hope shot into Michael's bright blue eyes--and he
exclaimed with a kind of joy, as he seized Binko, his bulldog, by his
fat, engaging throat:

"Bessie! Old Bessie--By Jove, what an idea!--the very thing. She'd do it
for me like a shot, dear old body!"

Binko gurgled and slobbered in sympathy.

"She would be kind to you, too, Binko. She would not say she found your
hairs on every chair, and that you dribbled on her dress! She would not
tell your master that he left his cigarette-ash about, and she hated the
smell of smoke! She would not want this room for her boudoir, she----"

Then he stopped his flow of words, suddenly catching sight of the
whimsical, sardonic smile upon his friend's face.

"Oh, Lord!" he mumbled, contritely. "I had forgotten you were here,
Henry. I am so jolly upset."

"This heartlessness about poor Maurice has finished you, eh?" Mr.
Fordyce suggested. He felt he might be gaining his end.

Michael covered his face with his hands.

"It seems so ghastly to think of marriage with the poor chap not yet
dead--I am fairly knocked over--it really is the last straw--but she
will cry and make a scene--and she has certainly arguments--and it will
make one feel such a cad to leave her."

"She wrote that--did she?--wrote of marriage and her husband's last
attack of hemorrhage in the same paragraph, I suppose. Michael, it is
revolting! My dear boy, you must break away from her--and then do try to
occupy yourself with more important things than women. Believe me, they
are all very well in their way and in their proper place--to be treated
with the greatest courtesy and respect as wives and mothers--even loved,
if you will, for a recreation--but as vital factors in a man's real
life! My dear fellow, the idea is ridiculous--that life should be for
his count