Laurence Desmond intended to ask Miss Jerningham to be his wife, but he was determined not to marry until he was secure of something like fifteen hundred a year. He reckoned his future expenditure sometimes as he meditated by his bachelor hearth, with a cigar between his lips. Two hundred a year for a house somewhere within reasonable distance of the Park; a hundred for his wife’s dress, fifty for his own; a miniature brougham would be rather a tight squeeze at a hundred and fifty; his own expenses, cigars, diplomatic dinners given at his club, cab-hire, books and newspapers, say two hundred more; and the remaining eight hundred for the vulgar necessities of every-day existence. Mr. Desmond mapped out his future very pleasantly for himself and the woman he loved; but in those days he was yet very far from the possession of the indispensable fifteen hundred. So he held his peace in the little flower-garden at Passy, and was content to talk agreeable nonsense to Emily Jerningham, while the poor little fountain trickled and dripped in the sunshine, and the gaudy red geraniums in the plaster vases on the wall made patches of vivid colour against the hot blue sky, and that hoarse chorus of Paris sounded its perpetual accompaniment--the roar of wheels and the rattle of vehicles, the tinkling of bells, the jingling of spoons and glasses on the pavement outside the coffee-houses, and the voices of the excited million, all blended into one indistinguishable clamour, rising and falling like the waves of a distant sea. Mr. Desmond waited, satisfied with his prospects, content to abide the ripening of his fortunes, and convinced that good feeling and policy alike were involved in patience. Unhappily, the man who plans his own life is like a chess-player in London matched against a chess-player in Paris, and with _no_ telegraphic communications of his adversary’s moves. His theory of the game is perfect. His plan of action is decided upon with the cool deliberation of an accomplished strategist. He sees his way to the very end of the encounter: his castle there, his bishop here, his queen in the centre of the board, and--lo, his enemy is checkmated! But that hidden player in Paris adopts unimaginable tactics; and suddenly, after one never-to-be-expected move, the player in London finds himself ignominiously beaten.