other pocket for
the purpose of one final engagement with the habit of high living.
After that--well time would show. It was futile to speculate upon the
future. He had the clothes he stood up in, the brain and tissue heaven
had provided him with and a spirit unawed by adversity. Many men have
started life with less.

A neighbouring clock chimed the hour. Too early to dine--besides there
were things to be done first. From a highly decorated vase that stood
upon a particularly restless over-mantel, he drew a small packet of
letters and untied the tape that circled them. They were written in a
careless sprawling hand, with lots of ink and little thought. They
were very full of 'darlings' and 'dearests' and 'how much do you love
me's.' They were very, very rapturous--they were very, very silly.
They had made him very happy when first he read them because silliness
and sincerity are often partners, but now he knew better--now they made
him laugh. Not a very cheerful laugh perhaps--a little cynical maybe
but on the whole tolerant and forbearing.

He put a match to the first and lit the others in succession one by one
until a charred chain of memories stretched across the tiling of the
grate. The last 'Doreen' straggled scarlet across a black and twisting
page, whitened, greyed and disappeared.

"And I'll grow a beard and forget all about you," said Richard. "And
it oughtn't to be very difficult really."

He rose, crossed to the window and looked out.

"If ever I fall in love again--if ever I earn enough for the luxury of
falling in love again, it won't be with----" but he changed his mind
about finishing the sentence, for, after all, it is folly to speak hard
words against pretty little things that make the world very jolly while
they last.

Besides Doreen had her way to make like any other girl, and no one can
deny the difference between the son of an exceptionally wealthy and
indulgent parent and the same son after the parental wealth has
exploded and the parental brain has been drilled with a .450 calibre
bullet discharged at a range of two inches from the frontal bone and
making a somewhat unsightly exit by way of the parietal.

James Frencham Altar, father of Richard, did not believe in failure or
exposure or public obloquy. His lode-star was success and when the
forward speed of success threw out its selectors and went suddenly into
reverse the liquidation of his affairs was conducted by the firm of