igned in them was
the primal cunning of the old Adam, the native man, quite untroubled and
alert--it saw John's look at me and it prompted my course.

"Yes," I said. "He wants the truth from me. Where's his letter? No harm
reading you without names." And I fumbled in my pocket.

"Letter gone. Never mind. Facts are: friend's asked girl. Girl's said
yes. Now he thinks he's bound by that."

"He thinks right," said John.

"Not a bit of it. You take Tannhauser. Engagement to Venus all a
mistake. Perfectly proper to break it. Much more than proper. Only
honorable thing he could do. I'm going to write it to him. Where's ink?"
And I got up.

John came from his window and sat down at the table. His glass was
empty, his cigar gone out, and he looked at me. But I looked round the
room for the ink, noting in my search the big fireplace, simple, wooden,
unornamented, but generous, and the plain plaster walls of the lodge,
whereon hung two or three old prints of gamebirds; and all the while I
saw John out of the corner of my eye, looking at me.

He spoke first. "Your friend has given his word to a lady; he must stand
by it like a gentleman.

"Lot of difference," I returned, still looking round the room, "between
spirit and letter. If his heart has broken the word, his lips can't make
him a gentleman."

John brought his fist down on the table. "He had no business to get
engaged to her! He must take the consequences."

That blow of the fist on the table brought my thoughts wholly clear and
fixed on the one subject; my will had no longer to struggle with them,
they worked of themselves in just the way that I wanted them to do.

"If he's a gentleman, he must stand to his word," John repeated, "unless
she releases him."

I fumbled again for my letter. "That's just about what he says himself,"
I rejoined, sitting down. "He thinks he ought to take the consequences."

"Of course!" John Mayrant's face was very stern as he sat in judgment on
himself.

"But why should she take the consequences?" I asked.

"What consequences?"

"Being married to a man who doesn't want her, all her life, until
death them do part. How's that? Having the daily humiliation of his
indifference, and the world's knowledge of his indifference. How's that?
Perhaps having the further humiliation of knowing that his heart belongs
to another woman. How's that? That's not what a girl bargains for. His
standing to his word is not an act of honor, but a dece