which he
had collected with such pride seemed to have lost their former value
and meaning, and he instinctively began to gather up the mass of books
and maps and photographs and pipes and gloves which lay scattered upon
the table, and to put them in their proper place, or to shove them out
of sight altogether. "If I'm to live up to that picture," he thought,
"I must see that George keeps this room in better order--and I must
stop wandering round here in my bath-robe."

His mind continued on the picture while he was dressing, and he was so
absorbed in it and in analyzing the effect it had had upon him, that
his servant spoke twice before he heard him.

"No," he answered, "I shall not dine here to-night." Dining at home
was with him a very simple affair, and a somewhat lonely one, and he
avoided it almost nightly by indulging himself in a more expensive
fashion.

But even as he spoke an idea came to Stuart which made him reconsider
his determination, and which struck him as so amusing, that he stopped
pulling at his tie and smiled delightedly at himself in the glass
before him.

"Yes," he said, still smiling, "I will dine here to-night. Get me
anything in a hurry. You need not wait now; go get the dinner up as
soon as possible."

The effect which the photograph of Miss Delamar had upon him, and the
transformation it had accomplished in his room, had been as great as
would have marked the presence there of the girl herself. While
considering this it had come to Stuart, like a flash of inspiration,
that here was a way by which he could test the responsibilities and
conditions of married life without compromising either himself or the
girl to whom he would suppose himself to be married.

"I will put that picture at the head of the table," he said, "and I
will play that it is she herself, her own beautiful, lovely self, and
I will talk to her and exchange views with her, and make her answer me
just as she would were we actually married and settled." He looked at
his watch and found it was just seven o'clock. "I will begin now," he
said, "and I will keep up the delusion until midnight. To-night is the
best time to try the experiment, because the picture is new now, and
its influence will be all the more real. In a few weeks it may have
lost some of its freshness and reality and will have become one of the
fixtures in the room."

Stuart decided that under these new conditions it would be more
pleasant to dine at Delm