be now and always my own dear comrade as well as my sweetest wife.
And now, Maude, what shall it be, the theatre or the Australians?'

'Do you wish to go to either very much?'

'Not unless you do.'

'Well, then, I feel as if either would be a profanation. Let us walk
together down to the Embankment, and sit on one of the benches there,
and watch the river flowing in the sunshine, and talk and think of
all that we have seen.'



CHAPTER VI--TWO SOLOS AND A DUET



The night before the wedding, Frank Crosse and his best man, Rupton
Hale, dined at the Raleigh Club with Maude's brother, Jack Selby, who
was a young lieutenant in a Hussar regiment. Jack was a horsy,
slangy young sportsman who cared nothing about Frank's worldly
prospects, but had given the match his absolute approval from the
moment that he realised that his future brother had played for the
Surrey Second. 'What more can you want?' said he. 'You won't
exactly be a Mrs. W. G., but you will be on the edge of first-class
cricket.' And Maude, who rejoiced in his approval, without quite
understanding the grounds for it, kissed him, and called him the best
of brothers.