ay, each time--I don't want to drivel,
but so it is--one sees a pair of lovers--oh! well, it's not easy to
retain one's philosophy, not to obey the primitive instincts of any
animal when it's ill-used and hurt, and to revenge oneself--to want to
kill, in short."

"You--you don't hate women, then?" Honoria said, still slowly.

Richard stared at her for a moment.

"Hate them?" he said. "I only wish to goodness I did."

"But in that case," she began bravely, "why----"

"This is why," he broke in.--"You may remember my engagement to Lady
Constance Quayle, and the part you, very properly, took in the
canceling of it? You know better than I do--though my imagination is
pretty fertile in dealing with the situation--what instincts and
feelings prompted you to take that part."

The young lady turned to him, her arms outstretched, notwithstanding
bridle-reins and whip, her face, and those strange eyes which seemed so
integral a part of the fair green-wood, full of sorrowful entreaty and
distress.

"Richard, Richard," she cried, "will you never forgive me that? She
didn't love you. It was horrible, yet in doing that which I did, I
believed--I believe so still--I did what was right by you both."

"Undoubtedly you did right--and that justifies my contention. In doing
that which you did you gave voice to the opinion of all
wholesome-minded people. That's exactly where it is. You felt the whole
business to be outrageous. So it was. I heartily agree."--He paused,
and the trees talked softly together, bending down a little to listen
and to look.--"As you say, she wasn't in love. Poor child, how could
she be? No woman ever will be--at least not in love of the nobler
sort--of the sort which, if one cannot have it, one had a vast deal
better have no love at all."

"But I am not so sure of that," Honoria said stoutly. "You rush to
conclusions. Isn't it rather a reflection on all the rest of us to take
little Lady Constance as the measure of the insight and sensibility of
the whole sex? And then she had already lost all her innocent, little
heart to Captain Decies. Indeed you're not fair to us.--Wait----"

"Like Ludovic Quayle?"

Miss St. Quentin straightened herself in the saddle.

"Oh! dear no, not the least like Ludovic Quayle!" she said.

Which enigmatic reply produced silence for a while on Dickie's part.
For there were various ways in which it might be interpreted, some
flattering, some eminently unflattering, to himsel