"The military looking gentleman upon my left? We talked about your

mother principally."
"I am sorry," returned the girl, wishful now she had not asked the

question. "I was hoping he might have chosen another topic for the
first evening!"

"He did try one or two," admitted the stranger; "but I have been about
the world so little, I was glad when he talked to me about himself. I

feel we shall be friends. He spoke so nicely, too, about Mrs.
Devine."

"Indeed," commented the girl.
"He told me he had been married for twenty years and had never

regretted it but once!"
Her black eyes flashed upon him, but meeting his, the suspicion died

from them. She turned aside to hide her smile.
"So he regretted it--once."

"Only once," explained the stranger, "in a passing irritable mood. It
was so frank of him to admit it. He told me--I think he has taken a

liking to me. Indeed he hinted as much. He said he did not often get
an opportnnity of talking to a man like myself--he told me that he and

your mother, when they travel together, are always mistaken for a
honeymoon couple. Some of the experiences he related to me were

really quite amusing." The stranger laughed at recollection of
them--"that even here, in this place, they are generally referred to

as 'Darby and Joan.'"
"Yes," said the girl, "that is true. Mr. Longcord gave them that

name, the second evening after our arrival. It was considered
clever--but rather obvious I thought myself."

"Nothing--so it seems to me," said the stranger, "is more beautiful
than the love that has weathered the storms of life. The sweet,

tender blossom that flowers in the heart of the young--in hearts such
as yours--that, too, is beautiful. The love of the young for the

young, that is the beginning of life. But the love of the old for the
old, that is the beginning of--of things longer."

"You seem to find all things beautiful," the girl grumbled.
"But are not all things beautiful?" demanded the stranger.

The Colonel had finished his paper. "You two are engaged in a very
absorbing conversation," observed the Colonel, approaching them.

"We were discussing Darbies and Joans," explained his daughter. "How
beautiful is the love that has weathered the storms of life!"

"Ah!" smiled the Colonel, "that is hardly fair. My friend has been
repeating to cynical youth the confessions of an amorous husband's

affection for his middle-aged and somewhat--" The Colonel in playful
mood laid his hand upon the stranger's shoulder, an action that

necessitated his looking straight into the stranger's eyes. The
Colonel drew himself up stiffly and turned scarlet.

Somebody was calling the Colonel a cad. Not only that, but was
explaining quite clearly, so that the Colonel could see it for

himself, why he was a cad.
"That you and your wife lead a cat and dog existence is a disgrace to

both of you. At least you might have the decency to try and hide it
from the world--not make a jest of your shame to every passing

stranger. You are a cad, sir, a cad!"
Who was daring to say these things? Not the stranger, his lips had

not moved. Besides, it was not his voice. Indeed it sounded much
more like the voice of the Colonel himself. The Colonel looked from

the stranger to his daughter, from his daughter back to the stranger.
Clearly they had not heard the voice--a mere hallucination. The

Colonel breathed again.
Yet the impression remaining was not to be shaken off. Undoubtedly it

was bad taste to have joked to the stranger upon such a subject. No
gentleman would have done so.

But then no gentleman would have permitted such a jest to be possible.
No gentleman would be forever wrangling with his wife--certainly never

in public. However irritating the woman, a gentleman would have
exercised self-control.

Mrs. Devine had risen, was coming slowly across the room. Fear laid
hold of the Colonel. She was going to address some aggravating remark

to him--he could see it in her eye--which would irritate him into
savage retort.

Even this prize idiot of a stranger would understand why
boarding-house wits had dubbed them "Darby and Joan," would grasp the

fact that the gallant Colonel had thought it amusing, in conversation
with a table acquaintance, to hold his own wife up to ridicule.

"My dear," cried the Colonel, hurrying to speak first, "does not this
room strike you as cold? Let me fetch you a shawl."

It was useless: the Colonel felt it. It had been too long the custom
of both of them to preface with politeness their deadliest insults to

each other. She came on, thinking of a suitable reply: suitable from
her point of view, that is. In another moment the truth would be out.

A wild, fantasticpossibility flashed through the Colonel's brain: If
to him, why not to her?

"Letitia," cried the Colonel, and the tone of his voice surprised her
into silence, "I want you to look closely at our friend. Does he not

remind you of someone?"
Mrs. Devine, so urged, looked at the stranger long and hard. "Yes,"

she murmured, turning to her husband, "he does, who is it?"
"I cannot fix it," replied the Colonel; "I thought that maybe you

would remember."
"It will come to me," mused Mrs. Devine. "It is someone--years ago,

when I was a girl--in Devonshire. Thank you, if it isn't troubling
you, Harry. I left it in the dining-room."

It was, as Mr. Augustus Longcord explained to his partner Isidore, the
colossal foolishness of the stranger that was the cause of all the

trouble. "Give me a man, who can take care of himself--or thinks he
can," declared Augustus Longcord, "and I am prepared to give a good

account of myself. But when a helpless baby refuses even to look at
what you call your figures, tells you that your mere word is

sufficient for him, and hands you over his cheque-book to fill up for
yourself--well, it isn't playing the game."

"Auguthuth," was the curt comment of his partner, "you're a fool."
"All right, my boy, you try," suggested Augustus.

"Jutht what I mean to do," asserted his partner.
"Well," demanded Augustus one evening later, meeting Isidore ascending

the stairs after a long talk with the stranger in the dining-room with
the door shut.

"Oh, don't arth me," retorted Isidore, "thilly ath, thath what he
ith."

"What did he say?"
"What did he thay! talked about the Jewth: what a grand rathe they

were--how people mithjudged them: all that thort of rot.
"Thaid thome of the motht honorable men he had ever met had been

Jewth. Thought I wath one of 'em!"
"Well, did you get anything out of him?"

"Get anything out of him. Of courthe not. Couldn't very well thell
the whole rathe, ath it were, for a couple of hundred poundth, after

that. Didn't theem worth it."
There were many things Forty-eight Bloomsbury Square came gradually to

the conclusion were not worth the doing:--Snatching at the gravy;
pouncing out of one's turn upon the vegetables and helping oneself to

more than one's fair share; manoeuvering for the easy-chair; sitting
on the evening paper while pretending not to have seen it--all

such-like tiresome bits of business. For the little one made out of
it, really it was not worth the bother. Grumbling everlastingly at

one's food; grumbling everlastingly at most things; abusing
Pennycherry behind her back; abusing, for a change, one's

fellow-boarders; squabbling with one's fellow-boarders about nothing
in particular; sneering at one's fellow-boarders; talking scandal of