“What,” asked Victoria, with her eyes on the river, “what are the wages?”
Mr. Crewe laughed. Incidentally, he thought her profile very fine.
“I do not believe in flattery,” he said, “but I think I should add to the qualifications personality and a sense of humour. I am quite sure I could never live with a woman—who didn't have a sense of humour.”
“I should think it would be a little difficult,” said Victoria, “to get a woman with the qualifications you enumerate and a sense of humour thrown in.”
“Infinitely difficult,” declared Mr. Crewe, with more ardour than he had yet shown. “I have waited a good many years, Victoria.”
“And yet,” she said, “you have been happy. You have a perpetual source of enjoyment denied to some people.”
“What is that?” he asked. It is natural for a man to like to hear the points of his character discussed by a discerning woman.
“Yourself,” said Victoria, suddenly looking him full in the face. “You are complete, Humphrey, as it is. You are happily married already. Besides,” she added, laughing a little, “the qualities you have mentioned—with the exception of the sense of humour—are not those of a wife, but of a business partner of the opposite sex. What you really want is a business partner with something like a fifth interest, and whose name shall not appear in the agreement.”
Mr. Crewe laughed again. Nevertheless, he was a little puzzled over this remark.
“I am not sentimental,” he began.