time they were silent; then, insensibly,
Pinckney began to talk and she to answer. What they said I need not say
--indeed I could not, for Pinckney was a poet, a man of rare intellect
and imagination, and Miss Warfield was a woman of this world and the
next; a woman who used conventions as another might use a fan, to'
screen her from fools; whose views were based on the ultimate. But they
talked of the world, and of life in it; and when it came to an end,
Pinckney noted to himself this strange thing, that they had both talked
as of an intellectual problem, no longer concerning their emotions--in
short, as if this life were at an end, and they were two dead people
discussing it.

So they arrived at the picnic, silent; and the people assembled looked
to one another and smiled, and said to one another how glum those two
engaged people looked, being together, and each wanting another. Mr.
Breeze had not yet come; and as the people scattered while the luncheon
was being prepared, Pinckney and she wandered off like the others. They
went some distance--perhaps a mile or more--aimlessly; and then, as
they seemed to have come about to the end of the valley, Pinckney sat
down upon a rock, but she did not do so, but remained standing. Hardly
a word had so far been said between them: and then Pinckney looked at
her and said:

"Why are you going to marry Mr. Breeze?"

"Why not?"--listlessly.

"You might as well throw yourself into the sea," said Pinckney; and he
looked at the sea which lay beyond them shimmering.

"That I had not thought of," said she; and she looked at the sea
herself with more interest. Pinckney drew a long breath.

"But why this man?" he said at length.

"Why that man?" said the woman; and her beautiful lip curled, with the
humor of the mind, while her eyes kept still the sadness of the heart,
the look that he had seen in the ballroom. "We are all poor," she
added; then scornfully, "it is my duty to marry."

"But Miles Breeze?" persisted Pinckney.

The lip curled almost to a laugh. "I never met a better fellow than
Miles," said she; and the thought was so like his own of the night
before that Pinckney gasped for breath. They went back, and had chicken
croquettes and champagne, and a band that was hidden in the wood made
some wild Spanish music.

Going home, a curious thing happened. They had started first and far
preceded all the others. Miss Warfield was driving; and when they were
again in the mai