Theatre at half-past seven. He rang up
and booked a stall for himself and, later, sent the wire to his wife.

"She's cut me loose," he said to himself, "and that's that."

He lunched as he liked now, with a memory that could afford to be
humorous of the five-shilling weekly limit to which he had cut himself
down in the bad old days only just over a year ago. But they were dear
old days, too, when this extraordinary complication between his wife
and him wasn't even thought of....

His luck was wonderful. He sold another car that afternoon. Two
three-hundred-pound cars in two days, meaning forty pounds in his
pocket! People liked him; he was big, good-looking and plausible, and
he had a way with him which absolutely prevented any possible
purchaser from ever giving another thought to any two-seater but the
Runaway. When he turned out of the establishment that winter
afternoon, on his way to an hotel to dress for his early and lonely
dinner somewhere or other, he was pleased. Brisk business did a little
towards lightening his trouble, just as less innocuous excitements
might do.

"Stick to business and stick to fun," he told himself grimly, as he
strode along, "and you'll worry through."

He thought of his children more than of anyone else throughout the
courses of his dinner in a light, bright, well-served restaurant.
George was a fine little boy, and should be done well, thoroughly
well, with no expense spared; he must get to know the little chap,
take him about a bit and make him interested in things worth knowing.
Minna was going to be pretty, a facsimile of her mother; and the baby
was a splendid little female animal. There was no doubt that he
possessed three beautiful kids of whom any man might be proud.

Surely, if only for their sakes, some day she'd soften and return to
him? Some evening he'd come home and find her as she used to be during
the first year, sweet and eager, and shining; loving and
passionate....

Osborn smoked several cigarettes over his coffee thinking of these
things; he was in no hurry to see the show at the Piccadilly, and
there would be plenty of time for Roselle afterwards. But he was
rather lonely here by himself, and looked around somewhat wistfully at
gay couples, laughing parties, all about him. There was not a woman
there who could equal Marie, he said to himself; if she were only here
with him, with her fresh, soft face, and her springing hair, and her
round and slender figure