mass of papers accumulating on the desk. There was a
busy day before him--a directors' meeting at 2 o'clock, people to see
at his office. But just now his thoughts were not on his work. He was
cogitating on what he had just admitted to Hadley. Yes, that was it.
The truth was out now. He had never acknowledged it before, even to
himself. He was tired of his bachelor life. He wanted a wife.

What had all his success been to him? An empty kind of satisfaction,
after all. He had made money, more money than he knew what to do with,
but it had not brought him real happiness. How could he be happy, when
there was no one to share his happiness, his success? His parents were
dead; he had no brothers or sisters. He was all alone in the world,
and the older he got the more he was beginning to realize how isolated
his life was. He had hosts of so-called friends--jolly good fellows of
both sexes, who were ready enough to help him spend his money; but
what was such friendship as that worth?

Yet Fred might be right, after all. He had himself known men,
confirmed bachelors like himself, who had got married and regretted it
ever since. Their lives had become a burden to them. They were
outrageously henpecked, made to dance attendance until all hours of
the morning upon silly, bridge-loving wives. True, but they were poor,
weak-minded simpletons, just the kind of men to be dominated, bullied
by a woman. He would like to see the girl who could coerce him into
doing anything he did not wish to do. If he ever married, he would
rule his own household; no woman would venture to dictate to him. He
would insist on his absolute independence, do as he chose, go where he
liked. He would be the master. If the husband had not the right to
command, who had? When a pair of horses was sold, did they not belong
to the purchaser? A wife was, in a sense, a purchase. The average
society girl who gets married nowadays practically sells herself. She
wants a man with money--a man who will give her jewels and clothes and
an establishment that will make every other girl of her acquaintance
green with envy. She gets him--for a consideration. That, no doubt,
was the kind of girl he would one day get. She would offer herself,
and if he liked the look of her he would buy her, and, having bought
her, she would learn soon enough that there was only one master in the
Stafford household. It was not necessary that they love each other.
They would be good friends, chu