"The company for me to-night will consist of one," he jerked out in a burst of half-eager, half-reluctant confidence. His listener smiled unsympathetically. "The one and only She of the moment; eh?" "Man, you wouldn't say that if you could see her," Van Bleit returned, his manner unusually earnest. "She is the most beautiful woman in the world." "That's a tall order," Lawless replied drily. "If my memory serve me, you have happened across perfection a few times in your career." "Never before," Van Bleit asserted. "My God, Lawless--" He broke off abruptly, and stared at the other curiously, his mouth agape. "I had forgotten... it's the same name," he said. "Are you by any chance related to Mrs Lawless?--at present living at Rondebosch." "We are connected by marriage," Lawless answered. He removed the cigar from his mouth and trimmed the ash deliberately. "If you want to stand high in the lady's good graces, you will be well advised not to mention my name. We do speak when accident throws us together, but I believe I state the bare truth when I say that the fact of our paths seldom crossing gives mutual satisfaction." "Yes! In-laws don't always hit it, of course. I never got on with my brother-in-law. I was glad when the beast died. Still, I regret the breach in this instance; the relationship might have served me, I'm going in to win. Grit. You give me your good wishes, I hope?" "In consideration of what I have told you, I wonder what my good wishes are worth?" Lawless returned. "But I'll give you a bit of good advice. The lady is puritanical, unpleasantly so. You will never win her favour in the character in which I have known you. Are you going in for reform?" "I'll go in for anything," Van Bleit answered promptly; "but I'll get my own way." He leant forward and laid a hand on the other's shoulder. "And when I've got it," he said boastfully, "there'll be other changes... We'll close all family dissensions--my friends will be my wife's. She'll soon see things from my view." Lawless looked carelessly amused. "Two people may use the same pair of binoculars," he remarked, "but they almost invariably alter the focus. I never attempted the absurdity of trying to make a woman see through my long-distance lens. Their horizon is generally contracted, and few see beyond that restricted line of their imagination. With your experience, Karl, I should have imagined you had long ago discovered that woman, while appearing the most pliable of substances, is as difficult to bend as wrought iron." Van Bleit smiled unpleasantly. "When I can't bend a thing, I break it," he answered.