he must be prepared to accept the
consequences, which are, in general, the last things that any average
man is prepared to accept. Shrewdness and vanity alike convinced Garth
that Quita's attitude on Dynkund, viewed in the light of her subsequent
disclosure, counted for nothing; while the fact that for six months she
had readily accepted his companionship counted for much. Her fine
sense of honour had naturally compelled her to "head him off" dangerous
ground. But he consoled himself with the reflection that a woman's
sense of honour is rarely her strongest point. Pit her heart against
it, and the outcome is merely a question of time. A conviction founded
on his own complicated past!

In his esteem, then, nothing stood between him and his desire but a
poor crop of scruples, readily trampled under foot; and by a fine
stroke of irony Lenox himself completed the trampling process. He, who
rarely took an active part in the random, unedifying talk congenial to
after-dinner "pegs" and cigars, had one night been moved to administer
advice to a rapturous subaltern, in the shape of a few trenchant
cynicisms in respect of women and marriage, bidding him not be fool
enough to run his misguided head into the noose; and the subaltern had
collapsed like a pricked air-ball. But Garth, to his own surprise,
retorted with no little warmth; and Lenox, turning in his chair, looked
at him deliberately--a glint of steel in his eyes.

"I couldn't presume to cross swords with you, Major," he remarked, on a
quiet note of contempt. "Your experience is as extensive as my own is
limited; and you have the good luck to be popular. I have not. But
that is simply a question of _metier_. Yours is to flatter women, even
behind their backs; whilst I am blockhead enough to speak the truth
about them, even to their faces. And the last thing a normal woman
wants from any man is--the truth."

From that moment Garth had hardened his heart. And now--a week
later--as he rode down from the Crow's Nest, he chuckled to himself
over the satisfactory way in which Lenox was playing into his hands by
adopting an attitude that would plainly act as a foil to his own
deferentially persistent courtship; a metaphorical walking round the
walls of Jericho, that must end in capitulation, soon or late.

From his point of view, Quita's unique position of personal freedom,
coupled with legal bondage, added a distinct flavour to the whole
affair: and so well plea