unning fiery eyes and a pink and pointed chin. A daughter
of a mother who had known too many admirers in her youth; a woman with
an ample lap on which she held a Persian kitten or a trifle of fruit.
Bounty, avarice, desire, intelligence--both of them had always what they
wanted.

He blew down his moustache again thinking of Freda in her floating
yellow veil that he had called ridiculous. She had not been angry, he
was nothing but a stable boy then. It was the way with those small
intriguing women whose nostrils were made delicate through the pain of
many generations that they might quiver whenever they caught a whiff of
the stables.

"As near as they can get to the earth," he had said and was Freda angry?
She stroked his arm always softly, looking away, an inner bitterness
drawing down her mouth.

She said, walking up and down quickly, looking ridiculously small:

"I am always gentle, John--" frowning, trailing her veil, thrusting out
her chin.

He answered: "I liked it better where I was."

"Horses," she said showing sharp teeth, "are nothing for a man with your
bile--poy-boy--curry comber, smelling of saddle soap--lovely!" She
shrivelled up her nose, touching his arm: "Yes, but better things. I
will show you--you shall be a gentleman--fine clothes, you will like
them, they feel nice." And laughing she turned on one high heel, sitting
down. "I like horses, they make people better; you are amusing,
intelligent, you will see--"

"A lackey!" he returned passionately throwing up his arm, "what is there
in this for you, what are you trying to do to me? The
family--askance--perhaps--I don't know."

He sat down pondering. He was getting used to it, or thought he was, all
but his wordy remonstrances. He knew better when thinking of his horses,
realizing that when he should have married this small, unpleasant and
clever woman, he would know them no more.

It was a game between them, which was the shrewder, which would win out?
He? A boy of ill breeding, grown from the gutter, fancied by this woman
because he had called her ridiculous, or for some other reason that he
would never know. This kind of person never tells the truth, and this,
more than most things, troubled him. Was he a thing to be played with,
debased into something better than he was, than he knew?

Partly because he was proud of himself in the costume of a groom, partly
because he was timid, he desired to get away, to go back to the stables.
He walke