ng or the other. I can't stand this." Her
calmness was getting on his nerves; she seemed to have determined just
how far she meant to go, to have fixed cold-bloodedly a limit. In
her happy young beauty and radiant coolness she summed up that sane
consistent something existing in nine out of ten of the people Shelton
knew. "I can't stand it long," he thought, and all of a sudden spoke;
but as he did so she frowned and cantered on. When he caught her she
was smiling, lifting her face to catch the raindrops which were falling
fast. She gave him just a nod, and waved her hand as a sign for him to
go; and when he would not, she frowned. He saw Bill Dennant, posting
after them, and, seized by a sense of the ridiculous, lifted his hat,
and galloped off.

The rain was coming down in torrents now, and every one was scurrying
for shelter. He looked back from the bend, and could still make out
Antonia riding leisurely, her face upturned, and revelling in the
shower. Why had n't she either cut him altogether or taken the sweets
the gods had sent? It seemed wicked to have wasted such a chance, and,
ploughing back to Hyde Park Corner, he turned his head to see if by any
chance she had relented.

His irritation was soon gone, but his longing stayed. Was ever anything
so beautiful as she had looked with her face turned to the rain? She
seemed to love the rain. It suited her--suited her ever so much better
than the sunshine of the South. Yes, she was very English! Puzzling and
fretting, he reached his rooms. Ferrand had not arrived, in fact did not
turn up that day. His non-appearance afforded Shelton another proof of
the delicacy that went hand in hand with the young vagrant's cynicism.
In the afternoon he received a note.

. . . You see, Dick [he read], I ought to have cut you; but I felt too
crazy--everything seems so jolly at home, even this stuffy old London.
Of course, I wanted to talk to you badly--there are heaps of things one
can't say by letter--but I should have been sorry afterwards. I told
mother. She said I was quite right, but I don't think she took it in.
Don't you feel that the only thing that really matters is to have an
ideal, and to keep it so safe that you can always look forward and feel
that you have been--I can't exactly express my meaning.

Shelton lit a cigarette and frowned. It seemed to him queer that she
should set more store by an "ideal" than by the fact that they had met
for the first and only time in