join us in a little celebration to-night?
My wife has a cousin from the country staying with her, and I have
promised to take them out to dine and to a show."

"I have nothing to do," Jacob replied. "I shall be delighted."

It was a little too obvious. Nora's cousin from the country, a very
nice and estimable person in her way, was not equal to the occasion.
She wore her ill-fitting clothes without grace or confidence. She
giggled repeatedly, and her eyes seldom left Jacob's, as though all
the time she were bidding for his approval. She was just well enough
looking and no more, the sort of woman who would have looked almost
pretty on her wedding day, a little dowdy most of the time during the
next five years, and either a drudge or a nuisance afterwards,
according to her circumstances. Jacob was very polite and very glad
when the evening was over. His host wrung his hand as they parted.

"Not my fault, old chap," he whispered. "Nora would try it. She hadn't
seen Margaret for three or four years."

"That's all right, Dick," Jacob answered, with unconvincing
cheerfulness. "Very pleasant time."

Jacob had endured a cheap dinner at a popular restaurant and circle
seats at a music hall with uncomplaining good humour, but the evening,
if anything, had increased his depression. He wandered into one of
the clubs of which he was a member, only to find there was not a soul
there whom he had ever seen before in his life. He came out within
half an hour, but a spirit of unrest had seized him. Instead of going
up to his rooms, he wandered into the foyer of the great hotel, in the
private part of which his suite was situated, and watched the people
coming out from supper. Again, as he sat alone, he was conscious of
that feeling of isolation. Every man seemed to be accompanied by a
woman who for the moment, at any rate, was content to give her whole
attention to the task of entertaining her companion. There were little
parties, older people some of them, but always with that connecting
link of friendship and good-fellowship. Jacob sat grimly back in the
shadows and watched. Perhaps it would have been better, he thought, if
he had remained a poor traveller. He would have found some little,
hardly used, teashop waitress, or perhaps the daughter of one of his
customers, or a little shopgirl whom he had hustled in the Tube,--some
one whose life might have touched his and brought into it the genial
flavour of companionship. As it was