Miss Sybil Bultiwell showed that she had a very pretty taste in food even if her weaknesses in other directions were undiscoverable. Seated at a table for two in Jacob’s favourite corner at the Ritz grill-room, she ordered langouste with mayonnaise, a French chicken with salad, an artichoke, a vanilla ice, and some wonderful forced strawberries. She drank a cocktail and shared to a moderate extent the bottle of very excellent dry champagne which her companion insisted upon. The aloofness of her general attitude was naturally modified a little, in deference to appearances, but at no time did she give Jacob the slightest hope of breaking down the barrier of icy reserve with which she had chosen to surround herself. He made one great effort about midway through the meal.

“Miss Bultiwell,” he said, “when I visited once at the Manor House—the first time it was, I think—you were very kind to me.”

“I have forgotten the circumstance.”

“I have not. I never could. I remember that I arrived on a bicycle, very hot and somewhat—er—inappropriately dressed. Your father, who had invited me over because at that time I was a useful business connection, took no particular pains to set me at my ease. I was very uncomfortable. You were exceedingly kind to me that evening.”

“Was I?” she asked indifferently.

Jacob took a sip of champagne and went on valiantly.

“I had never met any one like you before. I have never met any one like you since. Why should you treat me as though I were something entirely contemptible, because I refused to accept your father’s fraudulent balance sheet and put money into a ruined business?”

Sybil’s blue eyes, which, as he knew, alas! too well, were capable of holding such sweet and tender lights, flashed upon him with a single moment’s anger.

“I had hoped,” she said severely, “that you would have had the good taste to avoid this subject. Since you have opened it, however, let me remind you that I am a woman, and that feelings count for far more with me than arguments. You may have been perfectly justified in what you did. At the same time, you were the immediate cause of the tragedy surrounding my father’s death. For that I shall never forgive you.”

“It doesn’t seem quite fair, does it?” he complained, with a strange little quiver of his underlip.

“Women seldom are fair in their likes and dislikes,” she pronounced. “I hope you will not pursue the subject.”

“Is it permitted to ask you any questions with regard to your present avocation?” he ventured, a few minutes later.

“I have no objection to telling you what I am doing,” she replied. “I am taking a course of shorthand and typewriting at an office in Fleet Street.”

The horror of it chilled Jacob to the very soul. He had only that morning received a cheque from his brother for an unexpected bonus, which amounted to more than she would ever be able to earn in the whole course of her life.

“Is that absolutely necessary?” he asked.

“We have two hundred a year between us, my mother and I,” she answered drily. “Perhaps you can understand that an extra two or three pounds a week is desirable.”

“Damn!” Jacob muttered, under his breath.

“I really don’t see why you should be profane,” she remonstrated.

“It’s too absurd, your going out to work,” he insisted. “I had business connections in the old days with the house of Bultiwell, by which I profited. Why cannot I be allowed, out of the money I can’t ever dream of spending, to settle—”

“If you are going to be impertinent,” she interrupted coolly, “I shall get up and go out.”

Jacob groaned and cast about in his mind for a less intimate topic of conversation. The subject of theatre-going naturally presented itself. A momentary gleam of regret passed across her face as she answered his questions.

“Yes, I remember telling you how fond I always was of first nights,” she admitted. “Nowadays, naturally, we do not go to the theatre at all. My mother and I live very quietly.”

Jacob cleared his throat.

“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.”

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.

Dauncey shrugged his shoulders.

“Perhaps so,” he agreed. “I don’t suppose I should like her any better if she came and ate out of your hand.”

“You must admit that she shows a fine, independent spirit,” Jacob insisted.

“Bultiwell obstinacy, I call it!”

Jacob knocked the ash from his cigar.

“Dick,” he asked quietly, “is there any sense in two men arguing about a girl, when one is in love with her and the other isn’t?”

“None at all,” Dauncey agreed.

“Then shut up and tell me what horrible tragedy you’ve stumbled upon. You’ve something to say to me, haven’t you?”

Dauncey nodded.

“It’s about Montague and Littleham. I have discovered the fly in the ointment. I thought those two would never be content with a reasonable land speculation.”

“Proceed,” Jacob said encouragingly.

“Most of the idiots who bought these plots of land,” Dauncey continued, “were content to know that the Cropstone Wood, Water and Electric Light Company was in existence and had commenced the work of connecting them up. Not one of them had the sense to find out what they were going to pay for their water and lighting.”

“Ah!”

“I’ve just discovered,” Dauncey continued, “that Dane Montague and Littleham have an option on the Water and Electric Light Company. I don’t suppose they said a word to you about that. You found the money to buy the land, all right, but they’re going to make the bulk of the profit out of the water and lighting. That young lawyer at Cropstone gave us a word of warning, you remember, the day we were over there.”

“So he did,” Jacob murmured reflectively. “I was a mug.”

“Not only that,” Dauncey reminded him, “but some of the people who’ve bought the land are your friends, aren’t they? What about Miss Bultiwell?”

Jacob knitted his brows.

“I don’t fancy the company will be able to charge whatever they like,” he argued. “There are some restrictions—”

“They’ve got an old charter which has another fourteen years to run,” Dauncey interrupted. “As they’ve made a loss ever since they’ve been in business, there’s nothing to prevent their recouping themselves now, on paper, by charging practically whatever they like. I warned you not to have anything to do with those fellows.”

“I was an ass,” Jacob admitted.

The critical note vanished from Dauncey’s tone. He laid his hand upon his friend’s shoulder.

“It wasn’t your fault, Jacob,” he said. “We shall prove that you were never interested in the option and knew nothing about it. As for Miss Bultiwell, it won’t hurt you if you have to take that bit of land off her hands.”

Jacob shook his friend’s hand.

“Thank you, Dick.”

“And I should tackle those fellows at once, if I were you,” Dauncey added. “No good letting the matter drag on. Ask them what they’re going to charge. Say that one or two of the tenants have been making enquiries.”

“I will.”

“It’s a dirty business all round,” Dauncey declared. “They made you advance the whole of the money to buy the land, and they saved their bit for the waterworks and lighting company. It’s as plain as a pikestaff why they didn’t let you in on that. They knew perfectly well that you’d never be a party to such a low-down scheme as they had in view.”

Jacob swung round to his desk with an air of determination.

“I’ll tackle them within the next few days,” he promised.