"Oh, you're so perfect, dearest!" he said, and got up and kissed her. It needed some thought, none the less. Of his old pals--he suddenly remembered that he had been married over a year now, and not seen any one of them or wanted to--there were not many who lived near, and some of these ... well, they were all right in their way, but vaguely he felt they were not quite fit to introduce to any one so sweet as his girl-wife.... Marriage frequently turns cynics into sentimentalists. (The converse can be well ignored.) "I know," he cried suddenly. "I felt sure you would," she said. It was just these remarks that made her such an excellent companion. "Who is it then?" "Old Boyd--old Kenneth Boyd. He's just the very man you'd like. One feels so awfully at home with him, he's restful you know; old-friend-in-five-minutes sort of fellow. Oh and," he added, "I forgot just for the moment! There is a wife too." "I think I'm almost sorry," said Helena reflectively. "I don't think he sounds the sort of person who'd be much good unless alone. But I'm so silly with words. I never can explain and I expect I'm wrong." There seemed, at any rate, some wisdom in her cryptic estimate. The dinner-party was not a success. Helena was so charming to Kenneth Boyd that Hubert, almost beyond himself with pride and refraining with difficulty from kissing her when she was too especially delicious, wondered why on earth he had so long delayed showing his old friends how sweetly original a little simpleton he had secured in spite of all their jeers. Kenneth, over a glass of port from the local grocer, was absolute enthusiasm and delighted his host till he turned suddenly and said; "Now own that I was absolutely right?" With the wives, however, it was different. Mrs. Boyd said afterwards to her husband: "Just the poor little undeveloped fool one would expect any one so conceited to take as his wife!" whilst Helena thought her a rude pig, and neither was too subtle in concealing her opinion. This instinct of hostility was fatal to any real union between the households. Hubert noted with amusement how, at each fresh encounter, the two wives became more and more affectionately cold, and soon kissed on meeting. He turned, with Helena still urging him, to other possibilities. It was then that he thought of Geoffrey Alison. "Geoffrey Alison," exclaimed Hubert with far more conviction than about Kenneth Boyd. "He really _is_ the man! Amusing, clever, full of energy, and too young to be really busy." This in a condescending way. "Why, how old is he?" she enquired. "I want some one, you know, who is cleverer than me and can tell me things at galleries and places."