'You're a confoundedly lucky fellow, Reardon,' remarked Milvain,
who had already become very intimate with his new friend. 'A good
fellow, too, and you deserve it.'

'But at first I had a horrible suspicion.'

'I guess what you mean. No; I wasn't even in love with her,
though I admired her. She would never have cared for me in any
case; I am not sentimental enough.'

'The deuce!'

'I mean it in an inoffensive sense. She and I are rather too much
alike, I fancy.'

'How do you mean?' asked Reardon, puzzled, and not very well
pleased.

'There's a great deal of pure intellect about Miss Yule, you
know. She was sure to choose a man of the passionate kind.'

'I think you are talking nonsense, my dear fellow.'

'Well, perhaps I am. To tell you the truth, I have by no means
completed my study of women yet. It is one of the things in which
I hope to be a specialist some day, though I don't think I shall
ever make use of it in novels--rather, perhaps, in life.'

Three days--two days--one day.