“But another soldier came into her life--the most fearless soldier of our time, it has been said. But whether it was that he was the most fearless or the luckiest, we cannot tell. He himself insists on his luck. ‘I cannot lose,’ he is reported to have often said, sometimes unhappily. Whatever he touched became a jewel in his hand: whatever he ventured, he won. A name never expressed a man more perfectly--Victor Fortune! Captain Fortune, V.C., D.S.O., M.C., etc.... “He saw her first from the Strangers’ Gallery in the Lower House. He was, of course, familiar with her beauty--how often had he not seen portraits of her in the fashionable journals of the day!--but her face had hitherto failed to attract him, because of a certain coldness, a certain vapidity, which only his fastidious taste has chosen to discover in it. But those were photographs--now, from his obscure seat in the Gallery, Captain Fortune looked down upon the fairest figure the mind of man could conceive. “It was the afternoon set apart for the discussion on Fabric Gloves, and the loveliest woman of our time excelled herself in her speech: or, rather, her friend had excelled himself. Captain Fortune, gazing down upon that tall and golden figure, a light in that dark pit of legislation, was enthralled and--yes, appalled by her beauty and her wit. It had needed only her wit, her culture, to add that vivacity to her perfect features which would enslave Captain Fortune’s fastidious heart--Victor Fortune, who never ventured but he won! He met the lady that night, at Lady Savoury’s ball in aid of the Bus-Conductors’ Orphanage. “Three weeks later her old friend, her ‘helper,’ was stunned to read in _The Morning Toast_ of the engagement of the lady to Captain Fortune, V.C., D.S.O., M.C., etc. He was stunned; then, frantically, he rushed to her house. She was not yet fully dressed, she received him with pretty confusion. She was very sorry about it all, she said. She was frightfully sorry, she said. But she had fallen in love. Victor Fortune was so fine, so magnificent--and it needed but her love and care to help him combat his few weaknesses, which might be counted human in other men but were unworthy and degrading in such a man as Victor Fortune. “And so he went away, her friend, never to return. He never has returned. He never will return, for thus it is written. And Captain Fortune, who never ventured but he won, married his lady, the lady of his dreams....” What could we say? We could only say that we were very sorry, frightfully sorry, but his lovely lady had already told him that and it did not seem to have soothed him. Tears smouldered in those dark eyes, and I thought he was going to break down. I filled him a glass of champagne. “Sir,” said he, “your health. And yours, madam.”