subtle; it was like sitting
in the desert and playing at metaphysics with the Sphinx. He had had
about enough of it. He rose, stretching his long limbs, and the
action suggested the hideous tension of his intellect.

"You must let yourself go, Miss Tancred--let yourself go!" And he
laughed at his own vision of Miss Tancred; Miss Tancred insurgent,
Miss Tancred flamboyant, Miss Tancred voluptuous, volatile,
victorious!

And then a thought struck him.

He turned and saw Miss Tancred still sitting motionless, nursing her
knees; her pure inflexible profile glimmered against the dusk.

VI

Durant had an idea, or rather two ideas, one purely comic, the other
comic or tragic, according to the way you took it. He first of all
discovered that the Colonel was laying siege to the heart of Mrs.
Fazakerly, and at the same time conducting his campaign with an
admirable discretion. There never was a little Colonel of militia so
anxious to avoid committing himself. Not that the event could be
considered doubtful for a moment. Measuring all risks, it was in the
highest degree incredible that he would be called upon to suffer the
indignity of repulse.

There was nothing extraordinary in that. To be sure, on the first
face and blush of it, Durant had wondered how on earth Mrs.
Fazakerly could tolerate the Colonel; but, when he came to think of
it, there was no reason why she should not go a great deal farther
than that. The Colonel's dullness would not depress her, she having
such an eternal spring of gaiety in herself. She might even find it
"soothing," like the neighboring landscape. And as she loved her
laughter, it was not improbable that she loved its cause. Then she
had the inestimable advantage of knowing the worst of him; her
intelligent little eyes had seen him as he was; she could lay a soft
finger on all his weak spots. There was this to be said for the
Colonel, that he was all on the surface; there was nothing,
positively nothing, behind him. Besides, Mrs. Fazakerly was not
exacting. She had not lived forty years in the world without knowing
the world, and no doubt she knew it too well to ask very much from
it. Then the fact remained that the Colonel was an immaculate
gentleman, immaculately dressed, and he was not the only item in the
program. Coton Manor would be thrown in, and there were other
agreeable accessories. Mrs. Fazakerly's tastes were all of the
expensive sort, and her ambition aimed at something vaste