“If,” he suggested, “a box at the theatre could be accepted on the same terms as this luncheon—for your mother and you, I mean,” he went on hastily, “I am always having them given me. I’d keep out of the way. Or we might have a little dinner first. Your mother—”

“Absolutely impossible!” she interrupted ruthlessly. “I really feel quite ashamed enough of myself, as it is. I know that I have not the slightest right to accept your very delicious luncheon.”

“You could pay for anything in the world I could give you, with a single kind word,” he ventured.

She sighed as she drew on her gloves.

“I have no feeling of kindness towards you, Mr. Pratt,” she said, “and I hate hypocrisy. I thank you very much for your luncheon. You will forgive my shaking hands, won’t you? It was scarcely in the bargain. And I must say good-by now. I am due back at the office at half-past two.”

[Pg 84]

[Pg 84]

So Jacob derived very little real pleasure from this trip into an imaginary Paradise, although many a time he went over their conversation in his mind, trying to find the slenderest peg on which he could hang a few threads of hope. He rang up the city office and made sure that Miss Bultiwell should be offered the most desirable plot of land left, at the most reasonable price, after which he invited Dauncey, who was waiting impatiently for an interview, to take an easy-chair, and passed him his favourite box of cigars.

“What is it, Dick?” he demanded. “Why bring thunderclouds into my sunny presence?”

“Not quite so sunny as usual, is it?” Dauncey remarked sympathetically. “How is Miss Bultiwell?”

“She is taking a course of shorthand and typing,” Jacob groaned.

“That seems harmless enough. Why shouldn’t she?”

“Don’t be a fool,” Jacob answered crossly. “Do you realise that my income is nearly fifty thousand a year, and she has to grind in a miserable office, in order to be able to earn two or three pounds a week to provide her mother with small luxuries?”

“From what I remember of Miss Bultiwell, I don’t think it will do her any harm,” Dauncey remarked doggedly.

“You’re an unfeeling brute,” Jacob declared.

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