er direction, but a man of honour must prefer the rack to
the stocks."

Fairfax Cary looked at his watch. "Page's time is up. I'll go pursue my
object, sir."

The pursuit took him over the greensward to the bench built around the
great catalpa. The heat of the day was broken and the evening shadows
lay upon the grass. Mr. Page was gone. Unity sat beneath the catalpa,
elbow on knee and chin in hand, studying a dandelion at her feet. The
poetical works of Mr. Alexander Pope lay at a distance, face down. The
sky between the broad catalpa leaves was very blue, and a long ray of
sunshine sifted through to gild the tendrils of Miss Dandridge's hair
and to slide in brightness down her flowery gown. She glanced at the
young man striding towards her from the house, then again admired the
dandelion.

Fairfax Cary stooped, picked up Pope, and regarded the open pages with
disfavour. "And at home he probably reads only The Complete Farrier--on
Sundays maybe the Gentleman's Magazine or The Book of Dreams!"

"Who?" asked Unity.

"My rival. If he read Greek, he would yet be my rival and an ignorant
fellow."

"He does read Greek," said Miss Dandridge severely, "and 'ignorant
fellow' is the last thing that could be applied to him. Did you ride
over from Greenwood to be scornful?"

"I rode over to be as meek as Moses and as patient as Job--"

"They were never my favourites in Scripture."

"Nor mine." He closed the book, swung his arm, and Pope crashed into a
lilac bush. "There," he said, "goes meekness, patience, and the
eighteenth century. This is the nineteenth. Time is no endless draught,
no bottomless cup. Waste of life is the cankered rose. You know that you
treat me badly."

"Do I?--I did not mean to."

"You do. Now you've got to say to me, 'I love you and I'll marry you,'
or 'I love you not and I'm going to marry some one else.' If it's the
first, I'll be the happiest man on earth; if the second, I'll go far
away and try to forget."

"Won't you sit down?"

"You have kept me standing in spirit these three years.
Standing!--kneeling! Now, will you or won't you?"

"I do not care in the least for Mr. Page. He is merely an agreeable
acquaintance."

"And Mr. Dabney?"

"The same. He entertains me--"

"Mr. Lee--Mr. Minor--Ned Hunter--"

"What applies to one applies to all."

"I am glad to hear it. All merely agreeable acquaintances. And Mr.
Fairfax Cary? He is, perhaps, in the same category?"

"Perhaps. Oh, wha