, with a slight gesture toward two carefully attired
gentlemen who were pacing the wharf, raised his eyebrows
interrogatively.

His companion smiled. "Yes. She can also have either of them, and
without the asking."

The attenuated man regarded the two gentlemen with interest. "That chap
has a familiar face."

"Which? The one with the bouquet?"

"No; the one with the nose."

"That's Hamilton Goddard."

"To be sure! And I should know his friend was a lover. His anxious
glances up the wharf, and those flowers give him away. Such roses are
for no aunt or sister."

"Better for him if they were!"

"Why? No chance?"

"Well, that is not for me to say. But he is one of those fearfully
earnest chaps, with a tragic soul, and a rebuff would be a dangerous
thing for him."

"Poor devil!"

And the man of cheerful countenance slowly wagged his head, as he added,
in a sympathetic voice, "This being in love seems a painful pleasure."

Mr. William Townsend regarded his friend with half-shut eyes, and asked,
"Are you still the superior person who defies the--the malady?"

"Even so."

"You never had it?"

"Never."

"How old are you?"

"Thirty."

"Then it's a lie."

"It's the truth. Of course I have known very fine girls who caused the
usual thrills, whose conservatory kisses I should never undervalue. But
when it comes to the fatuous delirium--the celestial idiocy that queers
the brain and impairs the vision--why, I have been unlucky, that's all."

"You are a liar, Pats. Just a liar."

"Mumps have been mine, and measles; and I have fooled with grape juice,
but that other drunkenness has been denied me."

His companion's grunt of incredulity was followed by the exclamation:

"There she comes!"

The two men below had halted, wheeled about, and were watching an
approaching carriage. Down the wharf with this equipage came an
atmosphere of solidity and opulence, of luxury and perfect taste. On the
box, in quiet livery, sat a driver and a footman. The driver, from his
bearing and appearance, could easily have passed for the president of a
college. As the carriage halted before the gang plank, the gentleman
with the nose stepped forward and opened the door, while he of the roses
stood by with a radiant visage, his hat in one hand, his offering in the
other.

First, emerged an elderly gentleman, tall, slender, and acutely
respectable. After him, a girl descended, also tall and slender. She was
followed by a maid