During her week's absence from town Jacqueline's mail had accumulated; a number of business matters had come into the office, the disposal of which now awaited her decision—requests from wealthy connoisseurs for expert opinion, offers to dispose of collections entire or in part, invitations to dealers' secret conferences, urgent demands for appraisers, questions concerning origin or authenticity, commissions to buy, sell, advertise, or send searchers throughout the markets at home or abroad for anything from a tiny shrine of Limoges enamel to a complete suit of equestrian armour to fill a gap in a series belonging to some rich man's museum.

On the evening of her arrival at the office, she was beset by her clerks and salesmen, bringing to her hundreds of petty routine details requiring her personal examination. Also, it appeared that one of her clients had been outrageously swindled by a precious pair of fly-by-nights; and the matter required immediate investigation. So she was obliged to telephone to Mrs. Hammerton that she could not dine with her at the Ritz, and to Desboro that she could not see him for a day or two. In Desboro's case, a postscript added: "Except for a minute, dearest, whenever you come."

She did not even take the time to dine that evening, but settled down at her office desk as soon as the retail shop below was closed; and, with the tea urn and a rack of toast at her elbow, plunged straight into the delightfully interesting chaos confronting her.

As far as the shop was concerned, the New Year, as usual, had brought to that part of the business a lull in activity. It always happened so after New Years; and the stagnation steadily increased as spring approached, until by summer time the retail business was practically dead.

But a quiet market did not mean that there was nothing for her to do. Warehouse sales must be watched, auctions, public and private, in town and country, must be attended by one or more of her representatives; private clients inclined to sell always required tactful handling and careful consideration; her confidential agents must always be alert.

Also, always her people were continually searching for various objects ardently desired by all species of acquisitive clients; she must keep in constant touch with everything that was happening in her business abroad; she must keep abreast of her times at home, which required much cleverness, intuition, and current reading, and much study in the Museum and among private collections to which she had access. She was a very, very busy girl, almost too busy at moments to remember that she had fallen in love.

That night she worked alone in her office until long after midnight; and all the next day until noon she was busy listening to or instructing salesmen, clerks, dealers, experts, auctioneers, and clients. Also, the swindle and the swindlers were worrying her extremely.

Luncheon had been served on a tray beside her desk, and she was still absent-mindedly going over the carbon files of business letters, which she had dictated and dispatched that morning, when Desboro's card was brought to her. She sent word that she would receive him.

"Will you lunch with me, Jim?" she asked demurely, when he had appeared and shaken hands vigorously. "I've a fruit salad and some perfectly delicious sherbet! Please sit on the desk top and help me consume the banquet."

"Do you call that a banquet, darling?" he demanded. "Come out to the Ritz with me this instant——"

"Dearest! I can't! Oh, you don't know what an exciting and interesting mess my business affairs are in! A girl always has to pay for her pleasure. But in this case it's a pleasure to pay. Bring up that chair and share my luncheon like a good fellow, so we can chat together for a few minutes. It's all the time I can give you to-day, dearest."

He pulled up a chair and seated himself, experiencing somewhat mixed emotions in the presence of such bewildering business capability.

"You make me feel embarrassed and ashamed," he said. "Rotten loafer that I am! And you so energetic and industrious—you darling thing!"

"But, dear, your farmer can't plow frozen ground, you know; all your men can do just now is to mend fences and dump fertiliser and lime and gypsum over everything. And I believe they were doing that when I left."

"If," he said, "I were a real instead of a phony farmer, I'd read catalogues about wire fences; I'd find plenty to do if I were not a wretched sham. It's only, I hope, because you're in town that I can't drive myself back where I belong. I ought to be sitting in a wood-shed, in overalls, whittling sticks and yelling bucolic wisdom at Ezra Vail—— Oh, you needn't laugh, darling, but that's where I ought to be, and what I ought to be doing if I'm ever going to support a wife!"

"Jim! You're not going to support a wife! You absurd boy!"

"What!" he demanded, losing countenance.

"Did you think you were obliged to support me? How ridiculous! I'd be perfectly miserable——"

"Jacqueline! What on earth do you mean? We are going to live on my income."

"Indeed we are not! What use would I be to you if I brought you nothing except an idle, useless, lazy girl to support! It's unthinkable!"

"Do you expect to remain in business?" he asked, incredulously.

"Certainly I expect it!"

"But—darling——"

"Jim! I love my business. It was father's business; it represents my childhood, my girlhood, my maturity. Every detail of it is inextricably linked with memories of him—the dearest memories, the tenderest associations of my life! Do you wish me to give them up?"

"How can you be my wife, Jacqueline, and still remain a business woman?"

"Dear, I am certainly going to marry you. Permit me to arrange the rest. It will not interfere with my being your devoted and happy wife. It wouldn't ever interfere with—with my being a—a perfectly good mother—if that's what you fear. If it did, do you suppose I'd hesitate to choose?"

"No," he said, adoring her.

"Indeed, I wouldn't! But remaining in business will give me what every girl should have as a right—an object in life apart from her love for her husband—and children—apart from her proper domestic duties. It is her right to engage in the business of life; it makes the contract between you and me fairer. I love you more than anything in the world, but I simply couldn't keep my self-respect and depend on you for everything I have."

"But, my darling, everything I have is already yours."

"Yes, I know. We can pretend it is. I know I could have it—just as you could have this rather complicated business of mine—if you want it."

"Oh, Lord!" he exclaimed. "Imagine the fury of a connoisseur who engaged me to identify his priceless penates!"

He was laughing, too, now. They had finished their fruit salad and sherbet; she lighted a cigarette for him, taking a dainty puff and handing it to him with an adorable shudder.

"I don't like it! I don't like any vices! How women can enjoy what men enjoy is a mystery to me. Smoke slowly, darling, because when that cigarette is finished you must make a very graceful bow and say good-bye to me until to-morrow."

"This is simply devilish, Jacqueline! I never see you any more."

"Nonsense! You have plenty to do to amuse you—haven't you, dear?"

But the things that once occupied his leisure so casually and so agreeably no longer attracted him.

"I don't want to read seed catalogues," he protested. "Couldn't I be of use to you, Jacqueline? I'll do anything you say—take off my coat and sweep out your office, or go behind the counter in the shop and sell gilded gods——"

"Imagine the elegant Mr. Desboro selling antiquities to the dangerous monomaniacs who haunt such shops as mine! Dear, they'd either drive you crazy or have you arrested for fraud inside of ten minutes. No; you will make a perfectly good husband, Jim, but you were never created to decorate an antique shop."

He tried to smile, but only flushed rather painfully. A sudden and wholly inexplicable sense of inferiority possessed him.

"You know," he said, "I'm not going to stand around idle while you run a prosperous business concern. And anyway, I can't see it, Jacqueline. You and I are going to have a lot of social obligations to——"

"We are likely to have all kinds of obligations," she interrupted serenely, "and our lives are certain to be very full, and you and I are going to be equal to every opportunity, every demand, every responsibility—and still have leisure to love each other, and to be to each other everything that either could desire."

"After all," he said, serious and unconvinced, "there are only twenty-four hours in a day for us to be together."

"Yes, darling, but there will be no wasted time in those twenty-four hours. That is where we save a sufficient number of minutes to attend to the business of life."

"Do you mean that you intend to come into this office every day?"

"For a while, yes. Less frequently when I have trained my people a little longer. What do you suppose my father was doing all his life? What do you suppose I have been doing these last three years? Why, Jim, except that hitherto I have loved to fuss over details, this office and this business could almost run itself for six months at a time. Some day, except for special clients here and there, Lionel Sissly will do what expert work I now am doing; and this desk will be his; and his present position will be filled by Mr. Mirk. That is how it is planned. And if you had given me two or three months, I might have been able to go on a bridal trip with you!"

"We are going, aren't we?" he asked, appalled.

"If I've got to marry you offhand," she said seriously, "our wedding trip will have to wait. Don't you know, dear, that it always costs heavily to do anything in a hurry? At this time of year, and under the present conditions of business, and considering my contracts and obligations, it would be utterly impossible for me to go away again until summer."

He sprang up irritated, yet feeling utterly helpless under her friendly but level gaze. Already he began to realise the true significance of her position and his own in the world; how utterly at a moral disadvantage he stood before this young girl—moral, intellectual, spiritual—he was beginning to comprehend it all now.

A dull flush of anger made his face hot and altered his expression to sullenness. Where was all this leading them, anyway—this reversal of rÔles, this self-dependent attitude of hers—this calm self-reliance—this freedom of decision?

Once he had supposed there was something in her to protect, to guide, advise, make allowance for—perhaps to persuade, possibly, even, to instruct. Such has been the immemorial attitude of man; it had been instinctively, and more or less unconsciously, his.

And now, in spite of her youth, her soft pliability, her almost childish grace and beauty, he was experiencing a half-dazed sensation as though, in full and confident career, he had come, slap! into collision with an occult barrier. And the impact was confusing him and even beginning to hurt him.

He looked around him uneasily. Everything in the office, somehow, seemed to be in subtle league with her to irritate him—her desk, her loaded letter-files, her stacks of ledgers—all these accused and offended him. But most of all his own helpless inferiority made him angry and ashamed—the inferiority of idleness confronted by industry; of aimlessness face to face with purpose; of irresolution and degeneracy scrutinised by fearlessness, confidence, and happy and innocent aspiration. And the combination silenced him.

And every mute second that he stood there, he felt as though something imperceptible, intangible, was slipping away from him—perhaps his man's immemorial right to lead, to decide, to direct the common destiny of this slim, sweet-lipped young girl and himself.

For it was she who was serenely deciding—who had already laid out the business of life for herself without hesitation, without resort to him, to his man's wisdom, experience, prejudices, wishes, desires. Moreover, she was leaving him absolutely free to decide his own business in life for himself; and that made her position unassailable. For if she had presumed to advise him, to suggest, even hint at anything interfering with his own personal liberty to decide for himself, he might have found some foothold, some niche, something to sustain him, to justify him, in assuming man's immemorial right to leadership.

"Dear," she said wistfully, "you look at me with such very troubled eyes. Is there anything I have said that you disapprove?"

"I had not expected you to remain in business," was all he found to say.

"If my remaining in business ever interferes with your happiness or with my duty to you, I will give it up. You know that, don't you?"

He reddened again.

"It looks queer," he muttered, "—your being in business and I—playing farmer—like one of those loafing husbands of celebrated actresses."

"Jim!" she exclaimed, scarlet to the ears. "What a horrid simile!"

"It's myself I'm cursing out," he said, almost angrily. "I can't cut such a figure. Don't you understand, Jacqueline? I haven't anything to occupy me! Do you expect me to hang around somewhere while you work? I tell you, I've got to find something to do as soon as we're married—or I couldn't look you in the face."

"That is for you to decide. Isn't it?" she asked sweetly.

"Yes, but on what am I to decide?"

"Whatever you decide, don't do it in a hurry, dear," she said, smiling.

The sullen sense of resentment returned, reddening his face again:

"I wouldn't have to hurry if you'd give up this business and live on our income and be free to travel and knock about with me——"

"Can't you understand that I will be free to be with you—free in mind, in conscience, in body, to travel with you, be with you, be to you whatever you desire—but only if I keep my self-respect! And I can't keep that if I neglect the business of life, which, in my case, lies partly here in this office."

She rose and laid one slim, pretty hand on his shoulder. She rarely permitted herself to touch him voluntarily.

"Don't you wish me to be happy?" she asked gently.

"It's all I wish in the world, Jacqueline."

"But I couldn't be happy and remain idle; remain dependent on you for anything—except love. Life to the full—every moment filled—that is what living means to me. And only one single thing never can fill one's life—not intellectual research alone; not spiritual remoteness; nor yet the pursuit of pleasure; nor the swift and endless hunt for happiness; nor even love, dearest among men! Only the business of life can quite fill life to the brimming for me; and that business is made up of everything worthy—of the pleasures of effort, duty, aspiration, and noble repose, but never of the pleasures of idleness. Jim, have I bored you with a sermon? Forgive me; I am preaching only to instruct myself."

He took her hand from his shoulder and stood holding it and looking at her with a strange expression. So dazed, yet so terribly intent he seemed at moments that she laid her other hand over his, pressing it in smiling anxiety.

"What is it, dearest?" she murmured. "Don't you approve of me as much as you thought you did? Am I disappointing you already?"

"Good God!" he muttered to himself. "If there is a heaven, and your sort inhabit it, hell was reformed long ago."

"What are you muttering all to yourself, Jim?" she insisted. "What troubles you?"

"I'll tell you. You've picked the wrong man. I'm absolutely unfit for you. I know about all those decent things you believe in—all the things you are! But I don't know about them from personal experience; I never did anything decent because it was my duty to do it—except by accident. I never took a spiritual interest in anything or anybody, including myself! I never made a worthy effort; I never earned one second's worth of noble repose. And now—if there's anything in me to begin on—it's probably my duty to release you until I have made something of myself, before I come whining around asking you to marry a man not fit to marry——"

"My darling!" she protested, half laughing, half in tears, and closing his angry lips with both her hands. "I want you, not a saint or a holy man, or an archangel fresh from paradise! I want you as you are—as you have been—as you are going to be dear! Did any girl who ever lived find pleasure in perfection? Even in art it is undesirable. That's the beauty of aspiration; the pleasures of effort never pall. I don't know whether I'm laughing or crying, Jim! You look so solemn and miserable, and—and funny! But if you try to look dignified now, I'll certainly laugh! You dear, blessed, overgrown boy—just as bad as you possibly can be! Just as funny and unreasonable and perverse as are all boys! But Jacqueline loves you dearly—oh, dearly—and she trusts you with her heart and her happiness and with every beauty yet undreamed and unrevealed that a girl could learn to desire on earth! Are you contented? Oh, Jim! Jim! If you knew how I adore you! You must go, dear. It will mean a long night's work for me if you don't. But it's so hard to let you go—when I—love you so! When I love you so! Good-bye. Yes, to-morrow. Don't call at noon; Mrs. Hammerton is coming for a five-minute chat. And I do want you to myself for the few moments we may have together. Come about five and we can have tea here beside my desk."

He came next day at five. The day after that he arrived at the same hour, bringing with him her ring; and, as he slipped it over her finger, for the first time her self-control slipped, too, and she bent swiftly and kissed the jewel that he was holding.

Then, flushed and abashed, she shrank away, an exquisite picture of confusion, and stood turning and turning the ring around, her head obstinately lowered, absolutely unresponsive again to his arm around her and his cheek resting close against hers.

"What a beauty of a ring, Jim!" she managed to say at last. "No other engagement ring ever existed half as lovely and splendid as my betrothal ring. I am sorry for all the empresses and queens and princesses who can never hope to possess a ring to equal the ring of Jacqueline Nevers, dealer in antiquities."

"Nor can they hope to possess such a hand to adorn it," he said, "—the most beautiful, the purest, whitest, softest, most innocent hand in the world! The magic hand of Jacqueline!"

"Do you like it?" she asked, shyly conscious of its beauty.

"It is matchless, darling. Let empresses shriek with envy."

"I'm listening very intently, but I don't hear them. Jim. Also, I've seen a shop-girl with far lovelier hands. But please go on thinking so and hearing crowned heads shriek. I rather like your imagination."

He laughed from sheer happiness:

"I've got something to whisper to you. Shall I?"

"What?"

"Shall I whisper it?"

She inclined her small head daintily, then:

"Oh!" she exclaimed, startled and blushing to the tips of her ears.

"Will you be ready?"

"I—yes. Yes—I'll be ready——"

"Does it make you happy?"

"I can't realise—I didn't know it was to be so soon—so immediate——"

"We'll go to Silverwood. We can catch the evening express——"

"Dearest!"

"You can go away with me for one week, can't you?"

"I can't go now!" she faltered.

"For how long can you go, Jacqueline?"

"I—I've got to be back on Tuesday morning."

"Tuesday!"

"Isn't it dreadful, Jim. But I can't avoid it if we are to be married on Monday next. I must deal honourably by my clients who trust me. I warned you that our wedding trip would have to be postponed if you married me this way—didn't I, dear?"

"Yes."

She stood looking at him timidly, almost fearfully, as he took two or three quick, nervous steps across the floor, turned and came back to her.

"All right," he said. "Our wedding trip will have to wait, then; but our wedding won't. We'll be married Monday, go to Silverwood, and come back Tuesday—if it's a matter of honour. I never again mean to interfere with your life's business, Jacqueline. You know what is best; you are free and entitled to the right of decision."

"Yes. But because I must decide about things that concern myself alone, you don't think I adore you any the less, do you, Jim?"

"Nor do I love you the less, Jacqueline, because I can decide nothing for you, do nothing for you."

"Jim! You can decide everything for me—do everything! And you have done everything for me—by giving me my freedom to decide for myself!"

"I gave it to you, Jacqueline?"

"Did you think I would have taken it if you had refused it?"

"But you said your happiness depended on it."

"Which is why you gave it to me, isn't it?" she asked seriously.

He laughed. "You wonderful girl, to make me believe that any generosity of mine is responsible for your freedom!"

"But it is! Otherwise, I would have obeyed you and been disgraced in my own estimation."

"Do you mean that mine is to be the final decision always?"

"Why, of course, Jim."

He laughed again. "Empty authority, dear—a shadowy symbol of traditional but obsolete prerogative."

"You are wrong. Your decision is final. But—as I know it will always be for my happiness, I can always appeal from your prejudice to your intelligence," she added naÏvely. And for a moment was surprised at his unrestrained laughter.

"What does it matter?" she admitted, laughing, too. "Between you and me the right thing always will be done sooner or later."

His laughter died out; he said soberly: "Always, God willing. It may be a little hard for me to learn—as it's hard, now, for example, to say good-bye."

"Jim!"

"You know I must, darling."

"But I don't mind sitting up a few minutes later to-night——"

"I know you don't. But here's where I exercise my harmlessly arbitrary authority for your happiness and for the sake of your good digestion."

"What a brute you are!"

"I know it. Back to your desk, darling! And go to bed early."

"I wanted you to stay——"

"Ha! So you begin to feel the tyranny of man! I'm going! I've got a job, too, if you want to know."

"What!"

"Certainly! How long did you suppose I could stand it to see you at that desk and then go and sit in a silly club?"

"What do you mean, darling?" she asked, radiant.

"I mean that Jack Cairns, who is a broker, has offered me a job at a small but perfectly proper salary, with the usual commission on all business I bring in to the office. And I've taken it!"

"But, dear——"

"Oh, Vail can run my farm without any advice from me. I'm going to give him more authority and hold him responsible. If the place can pay for itself and let us keep the armour and jades, that's all I ask of it. But I am asking more of myself—since I have begun to really know you. And I'm going to work for our bread and butter, and earn enough to support us both and lay something aside. You know we've got to think of that, because——" He looked very serious, hesitated, bent and whispered something that sent the bright colour flying in her cheeks; then he caught her hand and kissed the ring-finger.

"Good-bye," she murmured, clinging for an instant to his hand.

The next moment he was gone; and she stood alone for a while by her desk, his ring resting against her lips, her eyes closed.

Sunday she spent with him. They went together to St. John's Cathedral in the morning—the first time he had been inside a church in years. And he was in considerable awe of the place and of her until they finally emerged into the sunshine of Morningside Park.

Under a magnificent and cloudless sky, they walked together, silent or loquacious by turns, bold and shy, confident and timid. And she was a little surprised to find that, in the imminence of marriage, her trepidation was composure itself compared to the anxiety which seemed to assail him. All he had thought of was the license and the clergyman; and they had attended to those matters together. But she had wished him to have Jack Cairns present, and had told him that she desired to ask some friend of her girlhood to be her bridesmaid.

"Have you done so?" he inquired, as they descended the heights of Morningside, the beautiful weather tempting them to a long homeward stroll through Central Park.

"Yes, Jim, I must tell you about her. She, like myself, is not a girl that men of your sort might expect to meet——"

"The loss is ours, Jacqueline."

"That is very sweet of you. Only I had better tell you about Cynthia Lessler——"

"Who?" he asked, astonished.

"Cynthia Lessler, my girlhood friend."

"She is an actress, isn't she?"

"Yes. Her home life was very unhappy. But I think she has much talent, too."

"She has."

"I am glad you think so. Anyway, she is my oldest friend, and I have asked her to be my bridesmaid to-morrow."

He continued silent beside her so long that she said timidly:

"Do you mind, Jim?"

"I was only thinking—how it might look in the papers—and there are other girls you already know whose names would mean a lot——"

"Yes, I know. But I don't want to pretend to be what I am not, even in the papers. I suppose I do need all the social corroboration I can have. I know what you mean, dear. But there were reasons. I thought it all over. Cynthia is an old friend, not very happy, not the fortunate and blessed girl that your love is making of me. But she is good and sweet and loyal to me, and I can't abandon old friends, especially one who is not very fortunate—and I—I thought perhaps it might help her a little—in various ways—to be my bridesmaid."

"That is like you," he said, reddening. "You never say or do anything but there lies in it some primary lesson in decency to me."

"You goose! Isn't it natural for a girl to wish for her oldest friend at such a time? That's really all there is to the matter. And I do hope you will like Cynthia."

He nodded, preoccupied. After a few moments he said:

"Did you know that Jack Cairns had met her?"

"Yes."

"Oh!" His troubled eyes sought hers, then shifted.

"That was another reason I wish to ask her," she said in a low voice.

"What reason?"

"Because Mr. Cairns knew her only as a very young, very lonely, very unhappy girl, inexperienced, friendless, poor, almost shelterless; and engaged in a profession upon which it is almost traditional for men to prey. And I wish him to know her again as a girl who is slowly advancing in an honest profession—as a modest, sweet, self-respecting woman—and as my friend."

"And mine," he said.

"You—darling!" she whispered.