Could it really be the case, he was wondering, that a month ago he had never seen Félicia Steinherz? Yes, it was perfectly true, and the curious thing was that though he now saw clearly that life must have been a howling wilderness in those days, it had not seemed so at the time. He had been fairly satisfied with himself and his prospects, and quite unconscious that the world was in reality empty and out of joint. It was with a scornful pity that he looked back from his vantage-point of to-day upon the Usk of a month ago. She was breathing the same air with him then, and yet he had not so much as guessed at her existence, nor even been conscious of a blank without her! Ah, but he had; for was she not the fulfilment of all his dreams, the realisation of the ideal of womanhood which had haunted him from his boyish days? Here and there, in one woman or another, he had caught, as it seemed, glimpses of this ideal, but closer acquaintance dispelled the illusion. The woman of his dreams still eluded him tantalisingly--until he met Félicia. He did not ask himself whether she corresponded in all respects with his mental picture; it was enough that she was herself. He could recall at this moment the rapture which had thrilled him when she first flashed upon his sight. It was the most ordinary and prosaic of introductions. He had met Hicks, the American newspaper-man, unexpectedly in Fleet Street, and had accepted without much enthusiasm his invitation to come and call with him upon J. Bertram Steinherz, the great Rhode Island shipbuilder, and his daughter, familiarly known in the States as the Plate Princess. Usk was not keen on meeting Americans, especially American heiresses who were presumably visiting England in search of titled bridegrooms, but Hicks was a family friend, and he accompanied him meekly to the Hotel Bloomsbury, with a passing wonder at the millionaire’s choosing such a locality. There was some excuse for the introduction, naturally; what was it? Oh, of course; Mr Steinherz was interested in a contract for the navigation of the Euphrates, and Usk had lately voyaged down that river, and could give him some tips. Blessed Euphrates! had it not floated him into paradise? He remembered Mr Hicks’s caustic strictures on the decoration of the hotel as compared with that of similar buildings in America, and his own shrug of amusement as he wondered what degree of obtrusive magnificence would be required to satisfy the æsthetic sense of the representative of the ‘Empire City Crier.’ He had entered the over-decorated room without receiving the slightest warning that it contained the one woman in the world, and his recollections came to a sudden stop at the point when the great discovery burst upon him. Mr Steinherz was there, of course, gentlemanly and well set-up, with a pointed grey beard and drooping moustache, which gave him the look of a retired naval officer; and there was a Miss Logan, who was