nor mind
can be destroyed. The earth was molten before it became cold rock and
quiet world." There, you see, Marmy, that I am a fellow-student of
yours.'

"Valiant's eyes were ugly to watch; for she had quoted from a lecture
of his, delivered to us that week. After an instant he said, with slow
maliciousness: 'Oh, ye gods, render me worthy of this Portia, and teach
her to do as Brutus's Portia did, ad eternum!'

"She shuddered a little, then said very graciously, and as if he
had meant nothing but kindness: 'Beggar that I am, I am even poor in
thanks.' I will leave you now to your cigarettes; and because I must go
out soon, and shall not, I fear, see you again this afternoon, good-bye,
Marmy, till Saturday--till Saturday.' And she left us.

"I was white and trembling with anger. He smiled coolly, and was
careful to choose me one of his best cigars, saying as he handed
it: 'Conversation is a science, Marmion. Study it; there is solid
satisfaction in it; it is the only art that brings instant pleasure.
Like the stage, it gets its immediate applause.'

"Well, Mrs. Valiant did ride Carbine on that Saturday. Such a scene
it was! I see it now--the mottled plump of hounds upon the scent, the
bright sun showing up the scarlet coats of the whips gloriously, the
long stride of the hunters, ears back and quarters down! She rode
Carbine, and the fences WERE stiff--so stiff that I couldn't have taken
half of them. Afterward I was not sorry that I couldn't; for she rode
for a fall that day on Carbine, her own horse, she had bought him of
Major Karney a few days before,--and I heard her last words as she
lay beside him, smiling through the dreadful whiteness of her lips.
'Goodbye, Marmy,' she whispered. 'Carbine and I go together. It is
better so, in the full cry and a big field. Tell the men at Luke's that
I hope they will pass at the coming exams.... I am going up--for my
final--Marmy.--I wonder--if I'll--pass.' And then the words froze on her
lips.

"It was persecution that did it--diabolical persecution and selfishness.
That was the worst day the college ever knew. At the funeral, when the
provost read, 'For that it hath pleased Thee to deliver this our sister
out of the miseries of this sinful world,' Big Wallington, the wildest
chap among the grads, led off with a gulp in his throat, and we all
followed. And that gold-spectacled sneak stood there, with a lying white
handkerchief at his eyes.

"I laid myself out to make