s gazing, Howat discovered,
lightly at Isabel Penny. "I must get the figures from Schwar," his
father said. Before he left the room he moved to his wife's side, rested
his hand on her shoulder. She looked up at him with a reassuring nod.
Howat saw that, whatever it might be, the bond between them was secure,
stronger than any differences of prejudices or blood, more potent than
time itself. The group, the strain, about the table, broke up.

The horses footed abreast over the road that crossed the hills and
forded the watered swales between Myrtle Forge and the Furnace.
Ludowika, riding astride, enveloped and hooded in bottle green, had her
face muffled in a linen riding mask. He wondered vainly what expression
she bore. Speech he found unexpectedly difficult. His passion mounted
and mounted within him, all his being swept unresistingly in its tide.
Howat said at last:

"Are you still so angry at life, at yourself?"

"No," she replied; "I slept that foolishness away. I must have sounded
like a character in _The Lying Valet._" Her present mood obscurely
troubled him; he infinitely preferred her in the pale crumpled silk and
candle light of the evening before. "I wish I could tell you what I
feel," he said moodily.

"Why not?" she replied. "It's the most amusing thing possible. You
advance and I seem to retreat; you reach forward and grasp--my fan, a
handful of petticoat; you protest and sulk--"

"Perhaps in Vauxhall," he interrupted her savagely, "but not here, not
like that, not with me. This is not a gavotte. I didn't want it; I tried
to get away; but it, you, had me in a breath. At once it was all over.
God knows what it is. Call it love. It isn't a thing under a hedge, I
tell you that, for an hour. It's stronger than anything else that will
ever touch me, it will last longer.... Like falling into a river.
Perhaps I'm different, a black Penny, but what other men take like
water, a woman, is brandy for me. I'm--I'm not used to it. I haven't
wanted Kate here and Mary there; but only you. I've got to have you," he
said with a marked simplicity. "I've got to, or there will be a bad
smash."

Ludowika rode silently, hid in her mask. He urged his horse closer to
her, and laid a hand on her swaying shoulder. "I didn't choose this," he
repeated; "the blame's somewhere else." He felt a tremor run through
her. "Why say blame?" she finally answered. "I hate moralities and
excuses and tears. If you are set on being gloomy, a