He went home on the top of an omnibus greatly cheered, convinced that, whatever had happened, Morland had done no grievous wrong. When Aline went to the studio to summon him to lunch, she found him busy upon the sketch portrait of Norma, and humming a tune--a habit of his when work was proceeding happily under his fingers. She looked over his shoulder critically. “That's very good,” she condescended to remark. “Now that Miss Hardacre is engaged to Mr. King, why don't you ask her to come and sit?” “Do you think it's a good likeness?” he asked, leaning back and regarding the picture. “It is the best likeness you have ever got in a portrait,” replied Aline, truthfully. “Then, wisest of infants, what reason could I have for asking Miss Hardacre to sit? Besides, I don't want her to know anything about it.” Aline glowed with inspiration. Why should things the most distantly connected with somebody else's marriage so exhilarate the female heart? “Is it going to be a wedding present, Jimmie?” “It is a study in indiscretion, my child,” he replied enigmatically. “You are perfectly horrid.” “I suppose I am,” he admitted, looking at the portrait with some wistfulness. “Ugly as sin, and with as much manners as a kangaroo =--does your feminine wisdom think a woman could ever fall in love with me?” She touched caressingly the top of his head where the hair was thinning, and her feminine wisdom made this astounding answer: “Why, you are too old, Jimmie dear.” Too old! He turned and regarded her for a moment in rueful wonder. Absurd though it was, the statement gave him a shock. He was barely forty, and here was this full-grown, demure, smiling young woman telling him he was too old for any of her sex to trouble their heads about him. His forlorn aspect brought a rush of colour to the girl's cheeks. She put her arms round his neck. “Oh, Jimmie, I have hurt you. I'm sorry. I'm a silly little goose. It's a wonder that every woman on earth is n't in love with you.” “That is the tone of exaggerated affection, but not of conviction,” he said. “I am the masculine of what in a woman is termed _passée_. I might gain the esteem of a person of the opposite sex elderly like myself, but my gallant exterior can no longer inspire a romantic passion. My day is over. No, you have not hurt me. The sword of truth pierces, but it does not hurt.” Then he broke into his good, sunny laughter, and rose and put his arm with rough tenderness round her shoulder, as he had done ever since she could walk. “You are the youngest thing I have come across for a long time.”