iii

He awoke still less sanguine, but with a grimness which was not unfamiliar. After all, he had certain obvious advantages. He might be less showy than Harry; but he was not insignificant. If it came to the test of brain, his own was not inferior. His position was assured, while Harry's was probably that of a freelance—delightful in youth, but dwindling and even becoming precarious with the passing of each year. More than that, however. Edgar had the knowledge that Harry succeeded easily. He could tell that Harry took little heed for the morrow. That unlined youthful face, in a man not much younger than himself, told him a good deal. He put Harry down as thirty-five. And if a man had not taken thought by the time he is thirty-five he will never begin to take thought after that age. He may harden; but he will never mature. Also, if a man is not married by the time he is thirty-five, there is generally a reason. It might be, as it was in Edgar's own case, that he has worked too hard, so that all his energy has been absorbed. That was not Harry's position. He was not married because he did not wish to be married. He pleased too easily, and he was not the sort of man who finds marriage an excellent starting-point for inexhaustible love-affairs.

No! Edgar was quite generous to Harry. He saw him as a man free from that skidding of the mind which is called sentimentalism. Love affairs—yes; but always sporting. As a man he had no objection to Harry. Directly, however, Harry appeared in the neighbourhood of Patricia, the situation changed. It would almost equally have changed if Harry had begun to make love to Claudia. He did not know that Claudia would have found Harry tiresome; but that was because he did not perceive that in calling himself unattractive, he spoke without her authority. And as for Patricia—who could tell what Patricia thought or felt? For all Edgar knew she might have fallen in love with the man whose dancing she so much admired; or with the pink and white baby who performed with the fire-irons, or with Monty Rosenberg. She might be incapable of falling in love with anybody, through self-infatuation, which is a disease greatly in vogue in modern times. She might give her love in time even to Edgar Mayne.

Edgar somehow thought, as he shaved, that this was not so improbable as he had felt on the previous evening or upon his awakening.