not coming. I'll pretend to be
expecting you too."

"Well, perhaps I'll try that. I know I've only got an outside chance.
She counts me as one of the also-rans."

"Are you really very devoted, old chap? Would you break your heart if it
didn't come off?"

Van Buren thought a moment, then said with his scrupulous truthfulness--

"Well, no: I can hardly say that, Harry. I'm not so far gone as all
that. But I think she's a very beautiful, charming, well-brought-up
young lady--a typical English girl--a June rose, a real peach. She's the
ideal of the sort of girl I'd like to marry. But if she's out of my
reach--well, I should resign myself."

"Would you try for some one else? There are probably about a million
girls just like that, you know, who would be only too delighted."

Van Buren shook his head.

"She's the only girl I should care about marrying. If it doesn't come
off I shall go back to New York. And I do wish you'd come with me. A
fellow with your talents would do splendidly there. Why, I'd find you a
place in the Bank in New York. I'd see you made your fortune pretty
quick. But you'd never leave London."

"I'm not so sure. Anyway, we'll give it a chance till the autumn."

"Yes, I must see it to a finish."

"If you don't settle down here, then, would you marry an American girl?"

"No. In that case I shan't marry at all. I shall settle down to the life
of a lonely bachelor--choose the broad and easy path that leads to
single misery, Harry." He laughed.

"Instead of the straight and narrow road that leads to married
unhappiness," said Harry. "So you _are_ very keen on Daphne?"

"Not exactly that, perhaps. But it must be her or no one for a
life-partner. She's the only girl who ever made any appeal to me from
the point of view of domestic life. When I think of a happy home and a
fireside with her, it makes me curl like an autumn leaf."

"What a curious chap you are," said Harry, smiling.

"See here," said Van Buren, taking a letter out of his pocket. "I've got
a letter from a lady--it's signed Flora Luscombe--but I don't seem to
remember anything about her."

Harry took the letter. It was written on mauve paper in a somewhat
straggling hand, and was dated from "Dimsdale Mansions, St. Stephen's
Road, North Kensington." It was a pathetic, yet cheery invitation to
tea.

"It's Miss Luscombe, of the Tank, as we call it," said Harry.

"Oh, the actress? Well, I think I shall go, Harry. I've never had the