st time.

"What work?"

"The pure and simple old theory. I know the theory. I believe in the
theory. Bletherley's Shelley-witted. But it's theory. You meet the
inevitable girl. The theory says you may meet her anywhen. You meet
too young. You fall in love. You marry--in spite of obstacles. Love
laughs at locksmiths. You have children. That's the theory. All very
well for a man whose father can leave him five hundred a year. But how
does it work for a shopman?... An assistant master like Dunkerley? Or
... Me?"

"In these cases one must exercise restraint," said Parkson. "Have
faith. A man that is worth having is worth waiting for."

"Worth growing old for?" said Lewisham.

"Chap ought to fight," said Dunkerley. "Don't see your difficulty,
Lewisham. Struggle for existence keen, no doubt, tremendous in
fact--still. In it--may as well struggle. Two--join forces--pool the
luck. If I saw, a girl I fancied so that I wanted to, I'd marry her
to-morrow. And my market value is seventy _non res_."

Lewisham looked round at him eagerly, suddenly interested. "_Would_
you?" he said. Dunkerley's face was slightly flushed.

"Like a shot. Why not?"

"But how are you to live?"

"That comes after. If ..."

"I can't agree with you, Mr. Dunkerley," said Parkson. "I don't know
if you have read Sesame and Lilies, but there you have, set forth far
more fairly than any words of mine could do, an ideal of a woman's
place ..."

"All rot--Sesame and Lilies," interrupted Dunkerley. "Read
bits. Couldn't stand it. Never _can_ stand Ruskin. Too many
prepositions. Tremendous English, no doubt, but not my style. Sort of
thing a wholesale grocer's daughter might read to get refined. _We_
can't afford to get refined."

"But would you really marry a girl ...?" began Lewisham, with an
unprecedented admiration for Dunkerley in his eyes.

"Why not?"

"On--?" Lewisham hesitated.

"Forty pounds a year _res_. Whack! Yes."

A silent youngster began to speak, cleared an accumulated huskiness
from his throat and said, "Consider the girl."

"Why _marry_?" asked Bletherley, unregarded.

"You must admit you are asking a great thing when you want a girl ..."
began Parkson.

"Not so. When a girl's chosen a man, and he chooses her, her place is
with him. What is the good of hankering? Mutual. Fight together."

"Good!" said Lewisham, suddenly emotional. "You talk like a man,
Dunkerley. I'm hanged if you don't."

"The place of Woman," insisted