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sues? They will all be paid before Christmas; that ought to be enough for you." "But it's not enough. Tell me what you are going to do--tell me. I won't be pushed on one side like a child." Desmond frowned. "Well--if you insist on having it, I am going to sell Diamond." She started and caught at his arm. For all his matter-of-fact coolness, she knew what those half-dozen words meant to her husband. "No,--no Theo. Not Diamond! He's the best of them all." "Exactly. He'll sell quicker and fetch a longer price than any of the others; that's why--he must go." "But the tournament? Captain Olliver's mad about winning the Cup this year." "I know that. So am I. I shall manage about a third pony, no fear. Time enough to think of that later. I must go and make out those advertisements." He set his teeth upon the word and turned to leave her, but her voice arrested him half-way to the door. "Theo!" "Well?" "Are you _sure_ there's nothing else that can be done? It--it isn't fair for you to lose the pony you love best, just because of a few dressmakers' bills." At that his pent-up bitterness slipped from leash. "Upon my soul, Evelyn, you're right. But there's no other way out of the difficulty, so let's have no more words about it: they don't make things easier to bear." CHAPTER XIV. I SIMPLY INSIST. "The fountains of my hidden life, Are, through thy friendship, fair." --EMERSON. Not many days later Desmond's advertisements appeared simultaneously in the only two newspapers of Upper India; and he set his face like a flint in anticipation of the universal remonstrance in store for him, when the desperate step he had taken became known to the regiment. He was captain of the finest polo team on the frontier; the one great tournament of the year--open to every Punjab regiment, horse and foot--would begin in less than a fortnight; and he, who had never parted with a polo pony in his life, was advertising the pick of his stable for sale. A proceeding so unprecedented, so perplexing to all who knew him, could not, in the nature of things, be passed over in silence. Desmond knew--none better--that victory or defeat may hang on the turn of a hair; that, skilled player though he was, the introduction of a borrowed pony, almost at the last moment, into a team trained for months to play in perfect accord was unwise, to say the least of it; knew also that
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