London. How she would love to see it; how
gorgeous it would be to show! How different from taking out Ruth, who
always said that the streets smelt of petrol and she had neuralgia and
wished they could live in the country, but of course _he_ must choose!
How different altogether! How different when the lights were lit and
curtains drawn! He still remembered how she sat, with one foot
underneath her body, and smiled through those curiously bright eyes, as
though always contentedly awaiting the next jolly thing that life could
not possibly fail to bestow upon her. Ruth was so hideously gloomy and
apologetic. She expected the worst but she never minded.

Yes, there was no doubt that was just the sort of sensible, unsloppy,
cheerful girl that he would like to marry. She would be nice to have
about the house. She wouldn't want the vote or anything. She thought
so much of his work that she would never grumble, like Ruth, if he had
a long bout at it. She'd take up needle-work or something. She had
such a happy nature. And then at nights they'd sit and have great,
jolly, sociable talks beside the fire, and he'd read out his books to
her. Possibly, now and then, she would see some mistake--not in the
book itself, but in a woman's dress or something: women were so good at
details--and he would learn a lot, as Kenneth said, from seeing how her
refreshingly simple mind regarded things. And then--she was a
child--they would play games and laugh and roast chestnuts and all that
sort of thing. He could imagine quite a jolly evening. The past hour
seemed like a nightmare by the side of it.

He got up and mixed a whisky and soda.

Really by now he wished he had thought of all this in Devonshire! He
had said to himself then, watching her, that somebody someday would be
a lucky man--the girl was so herself, somehow. But it had not occurred
to him that he could be the man.

Now, probably, he would never see the Hallams again. Mrs. Hallam, of
course, had said they must meet soon in London, but every one always
said that and it was five weeks now since his return. He had not,
naturally, ever written.

Of course--there was another thrill in this idea--he could go down to
Devonshire again with any false excuse trumped up; but even as this
came into his head, his fatally quick fancy, over-exercised, saw him
proposing to Miss Hallam, pouring out the sentimental stuff that a
love-scene demanded; perhaps--who knows?--even