But she was always pretty, and always restful; and if you told her of a disappointment or a worry she had always a tender--"Poor boy!"--or some such soothing word to throw at you. Then again, when one was back in one's lonely rooms at night, it was pleasant to think what she would have been like, sitting in that empty chair at the other side of the fireplace; pleasant to think how she would have smiled, and what she would have said, and what she would have done. Always, of course, with the proviso that she must be in the same sort of pretty frock you had admired so much that night, with the dimpled arms showing, and the firelight dancing on her hair and in her blue eyes. In effect, when Jimmy came to consider the matter, he knew that he must regard her always in the light of an ornament--something that others must admire quite as much as he did; something about which people must whisper enviously, and call him a lucky dog. Even when he tried the experiment of talking about his work and his plans and hopes, she was quite as satisfactory. She knew just when to nod--just when to remind you how clever you were--just when to wonder how you managed to think of such brilliant things. And her capacity for listening was marvellous. Jimmy having found it necessary, as has been stated, to reconstruct his world, and to dismiss Moira from that share in his prosperity which he had originally designed for her, came to decide that he might after all do worse than fall in love with Alice. Some day or other he must marry; some day or other there must be someone as beautifully dressed, and as beautiful in herself as this girl, who would take her place with him in the great world into which he was slowly moving, and would be admired as much as he was admired for his work. That was inevitable--and Alice would be most satisfactory. Let it not be supposed that he actually said this thing to himself in so cold-blooded a fashion; rather that that was the actual impression in his mind. There was that adaptability about him at that time, when his work chiefly held possession of him, that would have enabled him to fall in love quite easily with anyone half as pretty as Alice; there was no task about it, and he had for a long time found himself anxiously watching the hours when he was separated from her--anxiously longing for the time when he should see her. This was no grand passion in any sense of the word; it was merely a man and a maid who saw much of each other, and who were on the friendliest terms; it wanted but the slightest touch of either of them to set them on fire, and to see the thing done and settled. Perhaps Daniel Baffall and his wife nodded over it together more than once, and said in whispers that this was what might naturally be expected; perhaps Alice had her own views, and knew pretty clearly, as she usually did, what was coming.