silence from which she had escaped by putting her horse to a
canter.

But in the sober sense of sanity Clay knew that this wonderful thing
was not going to happen to him. He was not going to be given her
happiness to hold in the hollow of his hand. Bee Whitford was a modern
young woman, practical-minded, with a proper sense of the values that
the world esteems. Clarendon Bromfield was a catch even in New York.
He was rich, of a good family, assured social position, good-looking,
and manifestly in love with her. Like gravitates to like the land
over. Miracles no longer happen in this workaday world. She would
marry the man a hundred other girls would have given all they had to
win, and perhaps in the long years ahead she might look back with a
little sigh for the wild colt of the desert who had shared some perfect
moments with her once upon a time.

Bromfield, too, had no doubt that Bee meant to marry him. He was in
love with her as far as he could be with anybody except himself. His
heart was crusted with selfishness. He had lived for himself only and
he meant to continue so to live. But he had burned out his first
youth. He was coming to the years when dissipation was beginning to
take its toll of him. And as he looked into the future it seemed to
him an eminently desirable thing that the fresh, eager beauty of this
girl should belong to him, that her devotion should stand as a shield
between him and that middle age with which he was already skirmishing.
He wanted her--the youth, the buoyant life, the gay, glad comradeship
of her--and he had always been lucky in getting what he desired. That
was the use of having been born with a silver spoon in his mouth.

But though Clarendon Bromfield had no doubt of the issue of his suit,
the friendship of Beatrice for this fellow from Arizona stabbed his
vanity. It hurt his class pride and his personal self-esteem that she
should take pleasure in the man's society. Bee never had been well
broken to harness. He set his thin lips tight and resolved that he
would stand no nonsense of this sort after they were married. If she
wanted to flirt it would have to be with some one in their own set.

The clubman was too wise to voice his objections now except by an
occasional slur. But he found it necessary sometimes to put a curb on
his temper. The thing was outrageous--damnably bad form. Sometimes it
seemed to him that the girl was gratuitously irritating him by
fl