d frequently used this "short
cut" of late which did not add more than two miles to the length of his
return journey from Lostford.

It was still early in the afternoon when he rode slowly down Pilgrim
Road feeling like a Cavalier. There was no hurry. The earth was
breathing again after the storm. Everything was resting, and waking in
the vivid March sunshine. As he rode at a foot's pace along the mossy
track dappled with anemones, as he noted the thin powder of green on the
boles of the beech trees, and the intense blue through the rosy haze of
myriad twigs, the slight hunger of his heart increased upon him. There
was a whisper in the air which stirred him vaguely in spite of himself.

At that instant he caught sight of a slight black figure sitting on a
fallen tree near the track.

For one moment the Old Adam in him actually suggested that he should
ride past, just taking off his hat. But he had ridden past in life,
just taking off his hat, so often that the action lacked novelty. He
almost did it yet again from sheer force of habit. Then he dismounted
and walked up to Fay, bridle in hand.

"What good fortune to meet you," he said. "I so seldom come this way."

This may have been the truth in some higher, rarer sense than its
obvious meaning, for Wentworth was a perfectly veracious person. Yet
anyone who had seen him during the last few weeks constantly riding at a
foot's pace down this particular glade, looking carefully to right and
left, would hardly have felt that his remark dovetailed in with the
actual facts. The moral is--morals cluster like bees round certain
individuals--that we must not ponder too deeply the meanings of men like
Wentworth.

"I often used to come here," said Fay, "but not of late. I came to get
some palm."

She had in her bare hand a little bunch of palm, the soft woolly buds on
them covered with yellow dust. She held them towards Wentworth, and he
looked at them with grave attention.

The cob, a privileged person, of urbane and distinguished manners,
suddenly elongated towards them a mobile upper lip, his sleek head
slightly on one side, his kind, sly eyes half shut.

"Conrad," said Wentworth, "we never ask. We only take what is given us."

Fay laughed, and gave them both a twig.

Wentworth drew his through his buttonhole. Conrad twisted his in his
strong yellow teeth, turned it over, and then spat it out. The action,
though of doubtful taste in itself, was ennobled by his perfe