ut saying of a man in high place in
public life. But he must choose for his wife a woman who is equal to all
these things,--to my mind her highest achievement,--who makes the most of
the position he gives her, presides at his table and entertainments, and
reaches such people as, for any reason, he is unable to reach. I have
taken the pains to point out these things in a general way, for obvious
reasons. My greatest desire is to be fair."

"What," asked Victoria, with her eyes on the river, "what are the wages?"

Mr. Crewe laughed. Incidentally, he thought her profile very fine.

"I do not believe in flattery," he said, "but I think I should add to the
qualifications personality and a sense of humour. I am quite sure I could
never live with a woman--who didn't have a sense of humour."

"I should think it would be a little difficult," said Victoria, "to get a
woman with the qualifications you enumerate and a sense of humour thrown
in."

"Infinitely difficult," declared Mr. Crewe, with more ardour than he had
yet shown. "I have waited a good many years, Victoria."

"And yet," she said, "you have been happy. You have a perpetual source of
enjoyment denied to some people."

"What is that?" he asked. It is natural for a man to like to hear the
points of his character discussed by a discerning woman.

"Yourself," said Victoria, suddenly looking him full in the face. "You
are complete, Humphrey, as it is. You are happily married already.
Besides," she added, laughing a little, "the qualities you have
mentioned--with the exception of the sense of humour--are not those of a
wife, but of a business partner of the opposite sex. What you really want
is a business partner with something like a fifth interest, and whose
name shall not appear in the agreement."

Mr. Crewe laughed again. Nevertheless, he was a little puzzled over this
remark.

"I am not sentimental," he began.

"You certainly are not," she said.

"You have a way," he replied, with a shade of reproof in his voice, "you
have a way at times of treating serious things with a little less gravity
than they deserve. I am still a young man, but I have seen a good deal of
life, and I know myself pretty well. It is necessary to treat matrimony
from a practical as well as a sentimental point of view. There wouldn't
be half the unhappiness and divorces if people took time to do this,
instead of rushing off and getting married immediately. And of course it
is especiall