Even in winter time the Manor House at Chelmhurst is a cheerful abode; the garden is no mere waste of promises kept and made; the two great yew-trees on the lawn behind the house by their spacious graciousness prevent any sense of void, nobly supported as they are by the splendid laurel hedges and the evergreen shrubberies. The long, low house, with warm red-brick walls, tiled roofs, haphazard gables and chimney-stacks, strikes rich and cozy to the eye. Behind the garden, barely divided from it by light iron railings, lies a broad meadow, with a pond and a confining belt of elms. Before the house, clearly seen over the low wall, stretches the gorse-clad common with its graceful clumps of ash-trees.

Thin wraiths of country mist strayed about the common, hanging in the tall trees that surround it on almost all sides, and there was a bitter winter sting in the air, as Philip West and Fred Mortimer drove up from the station one afternoon late in November.

With his long, lanky limbs, thick shock of black hair, which he had a habit of tossing from his forehead, dark blue eyes, which at times appeared to be the abode of dreams, but on occasion flashed with abundant energy, his thin, almost cadaverous face, West contrasted markedly with his companion. As ever, he was smoking a cigar, which he fidgeted between his thin fingers when it was not cocked up at the corner of his mouth.

“I’m sorry Maddison could not come down; I find him a refreshing contrast to my restless self,” West said. “Besides I should like him to meet Alice Lane. She’s the sort of woman you don’t meet half a dozen times in a life. I wonder how they’d get on together.”

“Are you matchmaking for others, now you’ve made your own match?”

“Not a bit, Fred. That’s the one line of business I shouldn’t care to tackle. It’d do him a deuced lot of good to get married to the right woman.”

“I fancy he fancies other men have generally married the right woman—for him. Which is convenient, and does not land him in lifelong responsibilities. There are so many right men and so few right women.”

“Don’t agree with you a bit. The average man rubs along all right with the average woman. It’s when you get a man above or below the average that the trouble begins.”

Mortimer wondered if his companion were thinking of his own recent marriage. Strikingly beautiful he knew Mrs. West to be, and in a quaint, childish way, fascinating. But that would not suffice West for long. He had tired of similar charms often enough already.

The victoria swung briskly in through the gate on to the short drive, and before it had pulled up West leaped out and sprang up on to the veranda to greet his wife.

“You see, Fred,” he said, laughing—“you see we haven’t forgotten our honeymoon ways yet. We haven’t arrived at the silly stage when we’re ashamed of people knowing we’re fond of one another. You’ve met Fred before, Agatha; make the best you can of him, and let him do exactly what he likes, or he’ll never come again.”

A pretty blush lingered on her cheeks as she held out her hand to Mortimer in welcome.

“I try to keep him in order, Mr. Mortimer, but he’s just a great big baby—at home, at any rate.”

It was she who looked a child; her figure was girlish, supple and delicate, shown to perfection by the clinging soft silk gown; her face, too, was girlish, tender in every contour, set in a frame of unruly golden hair, the hazel eyes alone giving it distinction. Neither husband nor wife made any attempt to conceal their admiration of and affection for each other, and Mortimer could but question how long West, man of the world, would rest satisfied with the constant companionship of such a woman. Perhaps, however, she was exactly the helpmeet he needed, one who would catch him away from the serious work of life.

The chief characteristic of the interior of the Manor House is the long, low hall into which the front door opens directly; cozy, comfortable, half drawing room, half billiard room, the Wests used it constantly, Mrs. West working there in the morning and receiving visitors there in the afternoon; in the evenings the house-party assembling there before dinner and after.

“Here we are!” exclaimed West to a tall, graceful woman, who sat reading by the roaring fire. “Here’s Mortimer, and here’s me, so now you have some one to entertain or be entertained by, instead of reading all the time while Agatha insists on spooning with me.”

Mortimer considered himself quick at seeing whether a new acquaintance would prove to his liking, and immediately decided that there was not much chance of there being any real goodwill between Alice Lane and himself. She was not of a type that appealed to him; too sedate, too cool; stately, well-proportioned, almost robust, with a breezy, blunt, direct manner of speech, gesture and look.

“Why are you so late?” Mrs. West asked. “We waited lunch ever so long for you, and now it is almost tea time.”

“It’s partly my fault because I was so busy; partly the fog’s.”

“Chiefly his fault,” said Mortimer; “he kept me waiting in his room for two solid hours. Gave me The Times and a lot of cigars to keep me quiet.”

“You must be famished. Poor things! I’ll ring for tea at once. How can you be so naughty, Phil?”

“If you pull my hair like that I shall kiss you, and you know how that disgusts Alice. I should like to see her in love with some emotional young man like me——”

“Young!” exclaimed Mrs. West, with a merry laugh. “Young! Dark, thin and forty, you mean!”

“Like myself,” he continued, ignoring the interruption. “I wonder whether he would thaw her or she freeze him?”

“Don’t mind him, Alice.”

“I don’t. He’ll grow up some day.”

“There, Mrs. West,” he said, striking an attitude of triumph; “you see, this sensible young woman realizes that I am young. Profit by her example.”

Darkness was closing in, but Mrs. West protested that it would be far more pleasant to sit, chat and drink tea by the firelight than to have the lamp brought in.

“What a quaint quartette we are!” said West. “I, sedate and elderly; Alice, sedate and quite young; Agatha, the child; and Fred—well, all cynics are old.”

“Are you a cynic?” asked Mrs. West, handing him his cup.

“What do you mean by a cynic?”

“I always think cynics are—disagreeable and——”

“And you ask me if I am one!”

“Had you then, Aggie!” laughed her husband.

“I don’t care a bit. Mr. Mortimer knows I didn’t mean anything nasty. I’m always saying shocking things, and no one minds a bit.”

“Any more than when a kitten scratches,” said West.

“A kitten’s scratches hurt, and mine don’t. It’s mean of you to sit the other side of Alice, so that I can’t pull your hair. We have her here, Mr. Mortimer, to keep us good, and to make her better.”

“Aggie trying to make epigrams! What next! Heaven defend the poor man whose wife makes epigrams.”

Quite mistakenly, Mortimer counted himself an onlooker at life, delighting to sound the characters of his friends and when possible, to understand their doings. This night, as he lay awake, his thoughts dwelt upon the company of three with whom he had passed the evening. He had known Philip West for years, and considered him a strong, determined, pushing man. From small beginnings inherited from an uncle he had built up vast Stores known over London, indeed all the world over, thanks to skillful and persistent advertising. He was a man of considerable culture and refinement, one who, so Mortimer believed, would look for much in his wife, for much more, at any rate, than he would obtain from any pretty, overgrown schoolgirl. Agatha certainly was beautiful and her baby ways charming, but were they not likely soon to pall upon such a man as West? There was a further point: was she not simply a fair-weather mate? Would he not find her hopelessly wanting in any time of stress and storm? Could she shake herself free from her love of dress, luxury and excitement? Mortimer felt sorry for her; she was lovable, but helpless. To see her suffer would be as bad as to watch the pain of a pretty pet animal.

The third of the trio—Alice Lane? Mortimer tried to set aside his innate distaste for her and his suspicion that she despised him as a trifler, endeavoring to judge her justly. He had watched her closely, and had discovered that she in turn was closely watching West and his wife. She was obviously on intimate terms with Philip and apparently was entirely trusted by Agatha, but Mortimer had learned to mistrust the continued harmony of such a trio. A wrong note was sure to be sounded sooner or later. If Agatha failed or palled upon him, West would certainly turn to some other woman. If he held out his hand to Alice Lane, would she take it? Mortimer thought not, for he recognized that there was a great deal that was noble in her. But, then, she might hold that it was a noble part to help, in defiance of the world’s opinion, the man she loved. That she did love West he had so far seen no cause to believe, but he fancied that more than once when Agatha and her husband had indulged in open display of their affection she had shrunk back with some stronger emotion than mere distaste.

To Mortimer this openly displayed fondness was amusing and even grateful; it pleased him to meet a couple in their position whose refinement had not blunted their impulses. He felt himself old beside them, sighing as he thought that such innocuous sweets were insipid to him.

With that sigh he closed his eyes and fell asleep, leaving the future to expound itself.

Billiards and conversation helped the Sunday hours to pass rapidly, until at length Mortimer found himself late at night sitting alone with West.

“One more cigar and one more whisky,” said the latter, suiting the action to the word.

“Oh, yes, I know what that means. I grant you’ll probably be content with the one drink—but—several cigars. How do you manage it?”

“Manage what?”

“To burn the candle at both ends without burning out?”

“I don’t do it. I’ve several candles and I burn each at one end only. Work all day and rest down here.”

“Rest! You’d go mad if you ever tried to do it. You’re always at something, and as for sleep, it doesn’t seem to matter how little you have of it. You eat and drink everything you shouldn’t——”

“But I don’t worry. That’s my secret. I never let anything or anybody worry me. I sacked one of my head men the other day because he was developing a habit of trying to worry me.”

“Never worry! Lucky devil!”

“I’ve never done so. I’ve just worked straight ahead for what I wanted. I never stopped to consider whether I was a saint or a sinner, a beauty or a beast. What’s the good? We are what we are, that’s all. And—I’ll have what I want if I can get it, but I shan’t worry if I don’t get it—that’s all.”

“Again, lucky man.”

“You, Fred, you—your delight in life is to weigh in delicate scales one thing against another, and then choose by applying certain rules which you fancy you obey. But you don’t obey them, not you. No man could. We’re all creatures of impulse. Reason is only useful for getting us out of scrapes which are the result of our own or others’ mistakes. Why should I worry? I’ve got everything I want; money, power, a comfortable house, a pretty wife. Good Lord, what would be the use of deliberately shoving a fly into my own honey?”

“Yours is a fair-weather philosophy.”

“It’s brought me through a good many hours of foul weather. You know something about business, though your father—luckily for you—knows more. You know I’ve not built up my business without nearly running on rocks sometimes. Last year it was almost a toss-up whether I came a colossal smash or not.”

“Last year!”

“Last year.”

“But last year——”

“Oh, yes,” West broke in, “I know what you’re going to say. Last year I gave ten thousand pounds to a Royal charity fund. People said I did it to buy a knighthood. I did it to set my credit above suspicion. It saved me.”

“I’ve never heard you talk about business before.”

“Very likely not. I don’t often talk ‘shop.’ Does it bore you?”

“No, I like hearing men talk shop.”

“I wish I had been married then,” West said, lying back on the sofa and watching the smoke from his cigar as it drifted across to the fire. “A business man ought to have a home that keeps him—so to speak—out of his office.”

“And a wife to share his anxieties?”

“H’m—I don’t know that. Perhaps it would help.”

He knocked the ash off his cigar, got up and began pacing slowly up and down the long room.

“That’s just the difference between us, Fred. You’d weigh the woman you thought of marrying in those silly scales of yours, and if you found her short weight in any particular would fight shy. I’ve human impulses and follow them. When they get me into a mess I get out of it as well as I can. You spend so much of time in avoiding messes that you’ll never get into anything else.”

“I don’t seem to have many impulses left.”

“Rats! You don’t know anything about yourself—you analytical gents never do. Or else, which I suspect is more true, you don’t want anyone else to know you have just ordinary, human impulses. I believe you’re a sentimental old humbug. Come to bed.”