Doreen, of course, was a perfect darling. She always bit her lower lip and she held her arms tight to her sides like a child who has been naughty. There was no possible excuse to refrain from hugging Doreen. One just had to and damn the consequences. Doreen would cry after being kissed and would continue crying until again kissed into an even frame of mind. Lots of people kissed Doreen because they could not help themselves and she forgave them all on that account. There never was such a darling. Richard Frencham Altar, fresh from the wars, simply wanted to eat her and, seeing that he was a handsome young fellow with a pleasant aura of gold about him, Doreen arrayed herself in her most eatable frocks and devourable smiles and just let him. "Oh, Dicks," she cried, soon after their engagement--'Dicks' being the name she called him, for Doreens all the world over adore plurals and attaching 'S's' to names because it makes them so snakey--"Oh, Dicks, there's only one teeny-weeny thing I wish." "What's that?" he said. "I wish you were as poor as poor as poor so I could just love you for nothing but yourself." It was very pleasant hearing, but when a year later he went to her and confided that he was as 'poor as poor as poor' it transpired she had only said it for something to say and infinitely preferred young men who were as rich as rich as rich. Discoveries like that are a little apt to revolutionise a man's ideals even if they fail to destroy them altogether. Richard kept his views to himself. He kissed the tearful Doreen for the last time and she waved a tiny georgette kerchief from the window as he passed down the street and out of her life. He had not a great deal of leisure to consider the extent of his loss. The proceedings of the coroner's court and the importunities of creditors occupied his days very fully. The chaos of his father's affairs and the winding up of his own provided ample entertainment. The net result was a settlement of something less than a farthing in the pound and the retirement into oblivion of one of the most able spendthrifts of the twentieth century. He had spent a couple of months looking for work, but the name Frencham Altar, coupled with his complete inability to point to a single marketable asset other than courage and a smiling disposition, conspired together to harden the hearts of employers. Old friends denied him interviews, business acquaintances turned him from their doors and the casual advertiser forbore replying to his enquiries. Of course, if he had been a little less honest he might very easily have cleaned up a quiet thousand or two from the wreckage of the estate. His solicitor had demonstrated the absurdity of Quixoticism in such affairs, but whatever other reproach might be laid to his account, Richard was no opportunist and lacked the parental liking for feathering his own nest at the expense of his fellows.