proportions.  With money behind one, the problem of where to live approaches more nearly to the simple question of where do you wish to live, and a rich daughter-in-law would have surely seen to it that she did not have to leave her square mile of Mecca and go out into the wilderness of bricks and mortar.  If the house in Blue Street could not have been compounded for there were other desirable residences which would have been capable of consoling Francesca for her lost Eden.  And now the detested Courtenay Youghal, with his mocking eyes and air of youthful cynicism, had stepped in and overthrown those golden hopes and plans whose non-fulfilment would make such a world of change in her future.  Assuredly she had reason to feel bitter against that young man, and she was not disposed to take a very lenient view of Comus’s own mismanagement of the affair; her greeting when he at last arrived, was not couched in a sympathetic strain.

“So you have lost your chance with the heiress,” she remarked abruptly.

“Yes,” said Comus, coolly; “Courtenay Youghal has added her to his other successes.”

“And you have added her to your other failures,” pursued Francesca, relentlessly; her temper had been tried that day beyond ordinary limits.

“I thought you seemed getting along so well with her,” she continued, as Comus remained uncommunicative.

“We hit it off rather well together,” said Comus, and added with deliberate bluntness, “I suppose she got rather sick at my borrowing money from her.  She thought it was all I was after.”

“You borrowed money from her!” said Francesca; “you were fool enough to borrow money from a girl who was favourably disposed towards you, and with Courtenay Youghal in the background waiting to step in and oust you!”

Francesca’s voice trembled with misery and rage.  This great stroke of good luck that had seemed about to fall into their laps had been thrust aside by an act or series of acts of wanton paltry folly.  The good ship had been lost for the sake of the traditional ha’porth of tar.  Comus had paid some pressing tailor’s or tobacconist’s bill with a loan unwillingly put at his disposal by the girl he was courting, and had flung away his chances of securing a wealthy and in every way desirable bride.  Elaine de Frey and her fortune might have been the making of Comus, but he had hurried in as usual to effect his own undoing.  Calmness did not in this case come with reflection; the more Francesca thought about the matter, the more exasperated she grew.  Comus threw himself down in a low chair and watched her without a trace of embarrassment or concern at her mortification.  He had come to her feeling rather sorry for himself, and bitterly conscious of his defeat, and she had met him with a taunt and without the least hint of sympathy; he determined that she should be tantalised with the knowledge of how small and stupid a thing had stood between the realisation and ruin of her hopes for him.