him."

Bulstrode wheeled and scrutinized her, and said with the natural
asperity of a man who is bored by a woman's too generous championship
of another man:

"You stand for him warmly."

Mrs. Falconer, reading him, said quickly:

"Oh, I know him thoroughly! He has the faults of his race, but as an
individual he is the right sort."

With their pretty habit, her cheeks had grown red in the course of the
discussion.

"Please give me my parasol; it's awfully hot here."

He opened it for her and she held its rosy lining against the sun.

Mr. Falconer, who from the rail had been observing, through the haze
formed by countless cocktails, the figure of his wife in her white
dress, as well as the figure of her faithful squire, here came
swaggering up to them both. He was never jealous, but Mr. Bulstrode's
uniform courtesy and attention to the woman neglected by her husband
often piqued him to attention. As he drew near, Mrs. Falconer asked
quickly:

"And the Marquis, Jimmy? What do you suppose he will say to your Wild
West scheme?"

Bulstrode smiled.

"Oh, you women understand us even when we are stupid mysteries to
ourselves! Tell me, how will he take this?"

"He will refuse." The lady was quick in her decision. "He cannot in
consistence do otherwise. He will consider your plan provincial and
Yankee, and he will consider, what you ignore, that it will kill his
mother. If he cannot marry Molly with the family consent in proper
French fashion he will naturally give her up. But first of all, my
dear Jimmy, he will put _you_ in your place!"

Bulstrode cast a fatherly glance to where the young people sat talking
together: the Marquis in gray clothes of the latest London make, a
white rose in his button-hole, and monocle in his eye, a figure more
unlike the traditional cowboy one could scarcely conceive.

"Your taste is good, ma chere amie," his voice was delighted. "Your
instinct as a connoisseur is faultless; but you are not quite sure of
your _objet d'art_ this time." He nodded kindly at the Parisian--"He's
all right! he's a true sport, a lover and a man. De Presle-Vaulx knows
my Wild West scheme and has accepted."

Molly had put twenty-five francs on Bon Jour and expected to win it.
The money Bulstrode played would have bought a very handsome present
for his lady, and he felt as if he were making an anonymous gift to the
woman he loved.

At the ringing of the bell Falconer left his post by t