-a-dozen suits straight away."

"Good God!" I cried aghast. "I've never had six suits of clothes at a
time since I was born."

"And more shame for you. Look!" said he, drawing my wife's attention to
my comfortable but old and deliberately unfashionable raiment. "I love
you, my dear Barbara, but you are to blame."

"Hilary," said my wife, "the next time you go to town you'll order
half-a-dozen suits and I'll come with you to see you do it. Who is your
tailor, Adrian?"

He gave the address. "The best in London. And if you go to him on my
introduction--Good Lord!"--it seemed to amuse him vastly--"I can order
half-a-dozen more!"

All this seemed to me, who am not devoid of a sense of humour and an
appreciation of the pleasant flippancies of life, somewhat futile and
frothy talk, unworthy of the author of "The Diamond Gate" and the lover
of Doria Jornicroft. I expressed this opinion and Barbara, for once,
agreed with me.

"Yes. Let us be serious. In the first place you oughtn't to allude to
Doria's father as 'old man Jornicroft.' It isn't respectful."

"But I don't respect him. Who could? He is bursting with money, but
won't give Doria a farthing, won't hear of our marriage, and practically
forbids me the house. What possible feeling can one have for an old
insect like that?"

"I've never seen any reason," said Barbara, who is a brave little woman,
"why Doria shouldn't run away and marry you."

"She would like a shot," cried Adrian; "but I won't let her. How can I
allow her to rush to the martyrdom of married misery on four hundred a
year, which I don't even earn?"

I looked at my watch. "It's time, my friends," said I, "to dress for
dinner. Afterwards we can continue the discussion. In the meanwhile I'll
order up some of the '89 Pol Roger so that we can drink to the success
of the book."

"The '89 Pol Roger?" cried Adrian. "A man with '89 Pol Roger in his
cellar is the noblest work of God!"

"I was thinking," Barbara remarked drily, "of asking Doria to spend a
few days here next week."

"All I can say is," he retorted, with his quick turn and smile, "that
you are the Divinity Itself."

So, a short time afterwards, a very happy Adrian sat down to dinner and
brought a cultivated taste to the appreciation of a now, alas!
historical wine, under whose influence he expanded and told us of the
genesis and the making of "The Diamond Gate."

Now it is a very odd coincidence, one however which had little, if
anyt