ivian Blane. Yes, this young Polder would stand
admirably firm. Mariana frowned at the cobalt smoke of her cigarette. "I
am in a very bad temper," she told them. "No one for a minute thinks of
what my feeling may be. You are both entirely concerned with your own
nice sense of virtue."

"Not at all, but of your future," Howat Penny asserted.

Her lower lip assumed the contempt of which it was pre-eminently
capable. She made no immediate reply. James Polder's fingers absently
clasped the goblet before him; he drew it toward his plate, tipped the
thick liquid it contained. "Just what do you recommend me to do?"
Mariana challenged Howat. "Go through with a lifeful of winters like the
last! Marry another Sam Lewis! I am not celebrated for reliability; it
is only with Jimmy--" she broke off. Howat Penny recalled her callous
expression, photographed in Egyptian dress at a period ball, her
description of the hard riding and reckless parties of the transplanted
English colonies in the south.

Polder lifted the goblet to his lips, but set it back untasted. Howat
looked away from Mariana's scornful interrogation, unable to reply.
Finally, "I am old, as you once reminded me," he stated; "I'm out of my
time, don't understand, I can only remember, and remembering isn't any
longer of use. The men I knew, the kind, I hope, I was, would ruin
themselves a hundred times before compromising a woman. Polder appears
to understand that. And women I had the privilege of meeting sacrificed
themselves with a smile for what you dismiss as mere stupidity. God
knows which is right. They looked the loveliest of creatures then. There
was a standard, we thought high.... Things a man couldn't do. But I
don't know--it seems so long ago." He stopped to watch James Polder take
a sip of the mixture in his hand. The latter tasted it slowly, and then
emptied the goblet. His face was blank, with eyes nearly closed.

"I could carry Jimmy up in my hands," Mariana said. "Don't," she added
vaguely, as he squeezed out the remaining half of his orange and poured
fresh brandy into it. "It's curious," he told her; "not at all bad."

They moved out of the dining room, and Mariana and Polder continued to
the porch. Howat stood with a hand resting on the mahogany cigarette
box; he had the feeling of a man unexpectedly left by a train thundering
into the distance. It would not stop, back, for him now; he was dropped.
He sank relaxed into an accustomed chair; his brai