b for a suit-case. In the car he
tucked a very tired and comfort-desiring Susan in the shelter of his
great arm. There was something pathetically tender in the gathering of
the child to him. Barbara with her delicate woman's sense felt the
harmonics of chords swept within him. And when we reached home and were
alone together, she said with tears very near her eyes:

"Poor old Jaff. What a waste of a life!"

"My dear," I replied, "so said Doria. But you speak with the tongue of
an angel, whereas Doria, I'm afraid, is still earth-bound."

The tear fell with a laugh. She touched my cheek with her hand.

"When you're intelligent like that," she said, "I really love you."

For a mere man to be certified by Barbara as intelligent is praise
indeed.

"I wonder," she said, a little later, "whether those two are going to be
happy?"

"As happy," said I, "as a mutual admiration society of two people can
possibly be."

She rebuked me for a tinge of cynicism in my estimate. They were both of
them dears and the marriage was genuine Heaven-made goods. I avowed
absolute agreement.

"But what would have happened," she said reflectively, "if Jaffery had
come along first and there had been no question of Adrian. Would they
have been happy?"

Then I found my opportunity. "Woman," said I, "aren't you satisfied? You
have made one match--you, and you'll pardon me for saying so, not
Heaven--and now you want to unmake it and make a brand-new hypothetical
one."

"All your talk," she said, "doesn't help poor Jaffery."

I put my hand to my head to still the flickering in my brain, kissed her
and retired to my dressing-room. Barbara smiled, conscious of triumph
over me.

During dinner and afterwards in the drawing-room, she played the part of
Jaffery's fairy mother. She discussed his homelessness--she had an eerie
way of treading on delicate ground. A bed in a tent or a club or an inn.
That was his home. He had no possessions.

"Good Lord!" cried Jaffery. "I should think I have. I've got about three
hundred stuffed head of game stored in the London Repository, to say
nothing of skins and as fine a collection of modern weapons as you ever
saw. I could furnish a place in slap-up style to-morrow."

"But have you a chest of drawers or a pillow slip or a book or a dinner
plate or a fork?"

"Thousands, my dear," said Jaffery. "They're waiting to be called for in
all the shops of London."

He laughed his great laugh at Barbara's mome