I waved them farewell with a sinking at my heart. It was as if Youth and Gaiety were leaving me, hand in hand, with never a backward glance. I did not see Bill again until luncheon an hour later. It was one of our old-time silent meals, although we talked in a desultory manner, while the slippered servitors were in the room. Bill passed me salt after the manner of an ancient monarch handing poison--with deadly courtesy. I responded with pepper. And after Wing and Fong had left us, at the end of the meal, I tried desperately to make small talk. "I miss Mercedes so much," I said, "and Wright too." No answer. "It looks like a match," said I presently. "It does," said Bill, gloomily. I waited. "Wright's crazy about her," proffered my husband, after a time, leaning back in his chair. "Did he tell you so?" I asked curiously. "Kept me up one whole night, expatiating on her charms and his extreme unworthiness," he replied. I laughed. "When I think of the things he said about her at first: 'female leopardess,' and 'did you take him for a lion tamer?'" I said, "it really is funny." "A little antagonism at the outset," said Bill, blowing neat rings, "is very good for the course of true love--sometimes." I was silent. "Of course," said Bill, positively growling, "it's a lottery anyway--" He was so absurd, so little-boyish, so ill-tempered, that I wanted to mother him. I had seen Peterkins just like that when things went wrong.--After all, I thought, it must be trying to be even temporarily bound to a woman you dislike so much. "Speaking of lotteries," I said lightly, "you haven't heard the results of the last drawing, have you?" "No," he answered, "but Silas is counting the hours until the afternoon when the papers come up--he bought half a dozen tickets from that chap who rode up here the other day--" He rose from his chair and called the garage on the phone. By a miracle, Silas was there, and I heard Bill ask him the number of his tickets. Then, jotting them down, he called Havana and some mysterious person and asked for the winning numbers. As he spoke in rapid Spanish, I was forced to wait until he turned from the phone to say, "By George, Silas has made a killing!" I jumped up and was at his elbow when he put the receiver down. "Oh what is it?" I asked, fairly dancing with excitement. "Not the big prize," he answered, "but $1500 for all of that--" "Sarah will die of joy," I began. "So it's true then," said Bill, interrupting. "True as true," I answered, "and I think it's splendid." "I thought there was something afoot," said Bill, "when Silas asked for a job with me. I was glad to give him one. He can be useful to me in a hundred ways. He's a corker--" "They could build a little house at the back of the garden. Father would be so pleased--" I said, eagerly. "Sarah wouldn't leave me, you know--" I stopped. Bill, with his hat in his hands, turned.