then."

"Let's go and look at the flat to-morrow."

"Have tea with me in town, darling, and I'll take you."

Mrs. Amber and Rokeby came out into the hall. Rokeby wore a very
patient air, and Marie's mother beamed with that soft and sorrowful
pleasure which women have for such circumstances.

"Now say good night," said she softly, "say good night. Good-bye, Mr.
Rokeby, and we shall see you again a week to-day?"

"A week to-day."

The two men went out and down the stairs into the street. Rokeby had
his air of good-humoured and invincible patience and Osborn dreamed.

"I'll see you right home," said Rokeby.

"And you'll come in, and have a drink."

"Thanks. Perhaps I will. Haven't _you_ got a trousseau to show
me?"

"Get out, you fool!"

"What do chaps feel like, I wonder," said Rokeby, "when the day of
judgment is so near?"

"I shan't tell you, you damned scoffer!"

"Well, well," said Rokeby, "I've seen lots of nice fellows go under
this same way. It always makes me very sorry. I do all I can in the way
of preventive measures, but it's never any good, and there's no cure.
Ab-so-lutely none. There's no real luck in the business, either, as far
as I've seen, though of course some are luckier than others."

"Did you mention luck?" Osborn exclaimed, from his dream. "Don't you
think I'm lucky? I say, Desmond, old thing, don't you think I'm one of
the most astonishingly lucky fellows on God's earth?"

"You ought to know."

"Oh, come off that silly pedestal of pretence. Cynicism's rotten.
Marriage is the only life."

"'Never for me!'" Rokeby quoted Julia.

"Awful girl!" said Osborn, referring to her briefly. "'Orrid female.
What?"

"Very handsome," said Rokeby.

"Handsome! I've never seen it. She's not to be compared to Marie,
anyway. You haven't answered my question. Don't you think I'm lucky?"

"Yes, you are," replied Rokeby sincerely, turning to look at him, "for
any man to be as happy as you seem to be even for five minutes is a
great big slice of luck to be remembered."

"Marie's a wonderful girl. She can do absolutely anything, I believe.
It seems incredible that a girl with hands like hers can cook and sew,
but she can. Isn't it a wonder?"

"It sounds ripping."

They walked on in silence, Osborn back up in his clouds. At last he
awaked to say:

"Well, here we are. You'll come in?"

"Shall I?"

"Do. I shan't have so many more evenings of--"

"Freedom--"

"--Of loneliness, confound