Behind his tired eyes and general affectation of indifference Rupert Dempster hid an overwhelming ambition. He longed for love--not for the ordinary springtide passion experienced by ninety-nine men out of a hundred; nor for the ordinary "living-prosaically-ever-after" which is the ultimate sequel to such affairs. The desire of his heart was for the experience of the hundredth man,--an experience as far distinguished from the amours of the ninety-nine, as is the romance of the suburban Algernon and Angelina, from the historic passion of a Dante and Beatrice. Rupert searched not so much for a wife as for a mate, a woman who should be so completely the complement of himself that to meet would be to recognise, and after recognition life apart would become an impossibility and a farce. In his own mind the conviction remained unshaken that the day _would_ dawn when he should meet this dearer self, and enter into a completeness of joy which would end but with life itself. Yet the years passed by, and his thirty-fifth birthday came and went, and found him no nearer his goal. Once and again as the years passed by, Rupert awoke, breathless and panting, from a dream, the same dream, wherein he had met his love, and they had spoken together. The details of the dream seemed instantly to fade from his mind, leaving behind an impression of mingled joy and pain. She had been beautiful and sweet; he had been proud and glad, yet there had been a shadow. It had not been all joy that he had felt as he had welcomed the well-beloved; his emotion on awaking had been tinged with something strangely resembling fear. But the dream-face had been fair. His longing to meet it was but whetted by the consciousness of mystery. He met her at last at a garden-party and gained an introduction by accident. "Do find Lady Belcher, and bring her to have some tea," his hostess bade him, and supplemented her request with a brief description: "A tall, dark woman, dressed in yellow. She was on that bench a few minutes ago. Anyone will tell you..." Rupert crossed the lawn in the direction indicated; he was in the mood of resigned boredom which possesses most men at a garden-party, and for the moment the Dream Woman had no place in his thoughts. Lady Belcher was plainly a guest of importance, for whose refreshment the hostess felt herself responsible. She was probably elderly, and, as such, uninteresting from a young man's standpoint. He looked for the gleam of a yellow dress, caught it defined sharply among the surrounding blues and pinks, and drew up in front of the seat. "Lady Belcher, I think? Mrs Melhuish has sent me to ask you if you will have some tea?" Lady Belcher was talking volubly to an acquaintance on the subject of the shortcomings of her friends, and was much bored by the interruption. She lifted a face like an elderly rocking-horse, and made short work of the invitation.