y one of his investments
which was not prospering. His health was perfect. There were many
people leaning upon him, and not in vain, for happiness. He had been
obliged to put a limit on the premium which might be paid for houses
on the Cropstone Wood Estate, and even then, notwithstanding his
unwonted liberality in the matter of a tennis club, golf course and
swimming bath, the investment introduced to him in so unpropitious a
manner was a thoroughly remunerative one. He had won four first prizes
at the Temple Flower Show. His bungalow at Marlingden was the
admiration of all the neighbourhood, his flat at the Milan Court the
last word in luxury and elegance. And yet there was a void.

He looked out of the windows of the clubhouse at the cottage where
Sybil Bultiwell and her mother had first taken up their abode, and his
thoughts wandered away from the uproarious little scene over which he
was presiding. Called to himself by the necessity of acknowledging a
universal desire to drink his health, he looked around the table and
realised what it was that he lacked. There were a dozen women present,
comely enough, but only in one or two cases more than ordinarily
good-looking; they were there because they were the helpmates of the
men who brought them, sharers in their daily struggle, impressed with
the life duty of sympathy, houseproud a little, perhaps, and with some
of the venial faults of a small community, but--their husbands'
companions, the "alter ego" of the man whose nature demands the leaven
of sentiment as the flowers need their morning bath of dew. And Jacob
still lived and was alone. On his right sat the proud and buxom mother
of the captain of the club, a young bank clerk; on his left, the wife
of the secretary, a lady who persisted in remaining good-looking
although she had eight children and but a single nursemaid.

"And only one word more," the secretary concluded, crumpling up the
typewritten slips in his hand, wiping the perspiration from his
forehead, and trying to convey the impression that the whole of what
had gone before had come from his lips as spontaneously as these last
few words. "I ask you, ladies and gentlemen, to drink the health of
our president and generous benefactor, Mr. Jacob Pratt, and when we
all meet again next year, as a married man I have only one wish to add
to those which we have already expressed, and that is that there may
be a Mrs. Jacob Pratt to share in his pleasures, his triu