on't want to
think that--that what we feel for each other is--unconsecrated."

"It consecrates itself," I declared.

She shook her head.

"Surely it has its roots in everything that is fine in both of us."

"We both went wrong," said Nancy. "We both sought to wrest power and
happiness from the world, to make our own laws. How can we assert
that--this is not merely a continuation of it?"

"But can't we work out our beliefs together?" I demanded. "Won't you
trust me, trust our love for one another?"

Her breath came and went quickly.

"Oh, you know that I want you, Hugh, as much as you want me, and more.
The time may come when I can't resist you."

"Why do you resist me?" I cried, seizing her hands convulsively, and
swept by a gust of passion at her confession.

"Try to understand that I am fighting for both of us!" she pleaded--an
appeal that wrung me in spite of the pitch to which my feelings had been
raised. "Hugh, dear, we must think it out. Don't now."

I let her hands drop....

Beyond the range of hills rising from the far side of the Ashuela was
the wide valley in which was situated the Cloverdale Country Club, with
its polo field, golf course and tennis courts; and in this same
valley some of our wealthy citizens, such as Howard Ogilvy and Leonard
Dickinson, had bought "farms," week-end playthings for spring and
autumn. Hambleton Durrett had started the fashion. Capriciously, as he
did everything else, he had become the owner of several hundred acres
of pasture, woodland and orchard, acquired some seventy-five head of
blooded stock, and proceeded to house them in model barns and milk by
machinery; for several months he had bored everyone in the Boyne Club
whom he could entice into conversation on the subject of the records of
pedigreed cows, and spent many bibulous nights on the farm in company
with those parasites who surrounded him when he was in town. Then
another interest had intervened; a feminine one, of course, and his
energies were transferred (so we understood) to the reconstruction and
furnishing of a little residence in New York, not far from Fifth Avenue.
The farm continued under the expert direction of a superintendent
who was a graduate of the State Agricultural College, and a select
clientele, which could afford to pay the prices, consumed the milk and
cream and butter. Quite consistent with their marital relations was
the fact that Nancy should have taken a fancy to the place after Ham