feel better now,' she said.

For myself I had got rid of Armour for the afternoon. I think my
irritation with him about his pony rose and delivered me from the
too insistent thought of him. With Dora it was otherwise; she had
dismissed him; but he had never left her for a moment the whole long
afternoon.

She flung a searching look at me. With a reckless turn of her head, she
said, 'Why didn't we take him with us?'

'Did we want him?' I asked.

'I think I always want him.'

'Ah!' said I, and would have pondered this statement at some length in
silence, but that she plainly did not wish me to do so.

'We might perfectly well have sent his pony home with one of our own
servants--he would have been delighted to walk down.'

'He wasn't in proper kit,' I remonstrated.

'Oh, I wish you would speak to him about that. Make him get some
tennis-flannels and riding-things.'

'Do you propose to get him asked to places?' I inquired.

She gave me a charmingly unguarded smile. 'I propose to induce you to
do so. I have done what I could. He has dined with us several times, and
met a few people who would, I thought, be kind to him.'

'Oh, well,' I said, 'I have had him at the Club too, with old Lamb and
Colonel Hamilton. He made us all miserable with his shyness. Don't ask
me to do it again, please.'

'I've sent him to call on certain people,' Dora continued, 'and I've
shown his pictures to everybody, and praised him and talked about him,
but I can't go on doing that indefinitely, can I?'

'No,' I said; 'people might misunderstand.'

'I don't think they would MISunderstand,' replied this astonishing girl,
without flinching. She even sought my eyes to show me that hers were
clear and full of purpose.

'Good God!' I said to myself, but the words that fell from me were, 'He
is outside all that life.'

'What is the use of living a life that he is outside of?'

'Oh, if you put it that way,' I said, and set my teeth, 'I will do what
I can.'

She held out her hand with an affectionate gesture, and I was
reluctantly compelled to press it.

The horses broke into a trot, and we talked no more of Armour, or of
anything, until Ted Harris joined us on the Mall.

I have rendered this conversation with Dora in detail because subsequent
events depend so closely upon it. Some may not agree that it was basis
enough for the action I thought well to take; I can only say that it was
all I was ever able to obtain. Dora was always pa