ificence,
inadequacy alike--ceased to trouble her. The poetry of these beautiful,
innocent, clean-feeding beasts was, for the moment, sufficient in and
by itself.

But, even while she thus played with and rejoiced in them, remembrance
of their owner came back to her, his maiming, as against their
perfection of finish, the lamentable disparity between his physical
equipment and theirs. Honoria's expression lost its nonchalant gaiety.
She pushed her gentle, equine comrades away to left and right, not that
they ceased to please but that the human problem and the tragedy of it
once more became dominant. She walked on across the paddock rapidly,
while the fillies, forming up behind her, followed in single file
treading a sinuous pathway through the grass, the foremost one still
pushing its black muzzle, now and again, under her elbow and nibbling
insinuatingly at her empty jacket pockets.--If only that horrible
misfortune had not befallen Richard Calmady! If--if---- But then, had
it not befallen him, would he ever have been excited to so admirable
effort, would he ever have attained so absorbing and vigorous a
personality as he actually had? Again her thought turned on itself, to
provocation of momentary impatience.--Honoria unfastened the second
padlock with a return of her former decision.--There were conclusions
she wished instinctively to avoid, from which she instinctively desired
escape. She forced aside the all-too-affectionate, bay filly who
crowded upon her, shot back the bar of the gate and relocked it. Then,
once again, she kissed the pretty beast on the forehead as it stretched
its neck over the top of the gate.

"Good-bye, dear lass," she said. "Win your races and, when the time
comes, drop foals as handsome as yourself, and thank your stars you're
under orders, and so have small chance to muddle your affairs--as with
your good looks, my dear, you most assuredly would--like all the rest
of us."

With which excellent advice she swung away down the last twenty yards
of the avenue and out on to the roadway of the red-brick and freestone
bridge. Here, in the open above the water, the air was sensibly
fresher. From the paddock the deserted fillies whinnied to her. The
voices of the harvesters came cheerily from the cornland. The men sat
in the blond stubble, backed by a range of upstanding sheaves. The
women, bright in those frail blues, clear pinks, and lilacs, knelt
serving their meal. She of the black bodice s