sition. He came of humble, illiterate folk, and he
knew well enough that in a fashionable, high-class practice he would be
altogether out of place.

He set up his surgery, therefore, in the populous neighbourhood of
Brixton; and now, after five years' strenuous toil, he was beginning to
pay his way, beginning also to dream of a wife to bear him company in
the dingy, narrow house in which he dwelt.

That Antonia Gibbs would ever consent to be his wife he almost feared to
believe. He wooed her persistently, quietly, bringing her books--which
she seldom opened--an occasional bunch of flowers, or, more rarely
still, a box of sweets of some variety which his professional soul
warranted harmless, for Mr. Dowson was conscientiousness itself, and
nothing would have persuaded him to place his lady-love's little white
teeth in jeopardy, even though by such means she might be brought into
contact with him.

For her sake he scraped and saved, denying himself the least luxury, so
that if she came to him he could at least offer her a decent home; and
every act of petty self-sacrifice was sweet to him because it was
endured for her.

Yet Toni never gave him a second thought. To her, in her vivid youth,
Mr. Dowson, with his thirty-five years, his prematurely bald head, his
narrow chest, was a being of another race than her own. She knew--the
minx--that the man was deeply and quietly in love with her, but with the
unconscious cruelty of youth she ignored his suffering, and possibly
despised him ever so little that he continued to sigh for something
which he ought to have known was, for him, unattainable.

Yet to-night, her spirits raised by her unexpected good-fortune, Toni
showed herself more than usually bewitching; and although she managed to
stave off the declaration which still trembled on the young man's lips,
she played games with him in the most friendly fashion, and bade him
good-night at last with so sweet a smile that he almost fell upon his
knees then and there and kissed the slim little feet in their cheap
patent shoes!

He did not do it, fortunately. He retained just sufficient common sense
to know that the proceeding would have annoyed his divinity; and instead
he merely squeezed her hand and murmured a few inarticulate words which
meant a good deal more than they contrived to convey.

Then, arriving at home, he went to bed--and dreamed of Toni.

But Toni's dreams--the rainbow dreams of happy youth--were of a ver