seeing
what might have been solemnities. The position couldn't strike him as
solemn; he couldn't conceive that a woman might break off her
engagement for such a cause; but he did see his own position of
beneficiary as delicate.

His next words showed it: 'Of course I won't hunt here, if you really
say not. I could go away to hunt. The difficulty is that we want to keep
horses, don't we? and if I have a hunter it will be rather funny never
to use him at home.'

Althea saw that it would be rather funny. 'If you have a hunter I would
far rather you hunted here than that you went away to hunt.'

'Perhaps you'd rather I had a horse that couldn't hunt. The hunter would
be your gift, of course. I could just go on depending on my friends for
a mount, though that would look funny, too, wouldn't it?'

'If you will hunt, I want to give you your hunter.'

'In a sense it will be using your money to do something you disapprove
of.' Gerald was smiling at her as though he felt that he was bringing
her round to reasonableness. 'Perhaps that's ugly.'

'Please don't speak of the money; mine is yours.'

'That makes me seem all the dingier, I know,' said Gerald, half
ruefully, yet still smiling at her. 'I do wish I could give it up, just
to please you, but really I can't. You must just shut your eyes and
pretend I'm not a brute.'

After this little encounter, which left its mark on Althea's heart, she
felt that Gerald ought to be the more willing to yield in other things
and to enter into her projects. 'Don't you think, dear,' she said to him
a day or two after, when they were walking together, 'don't you think
that you ought soon to be thinking of a seat in Parliament? That will
be such a large, worthy life for you.'

Gerald, as they walked, was looking from right to left, happily,
possessively, over the fields and woods. He brought his attention to her
suggestion with a little effort, and then he laughed. 'Good gracious,
no! I've no political views.'

'But oughtn't you to have them?'

'You shall provide me with them, dear.'

'Gladly; and will you use them?'

'Not in Parliament,' laughed Gerald.

'But seriously, dear, I hope you will think of it.'

He turned gay, protesting, and now astonished eyes upon her. 'But I
can't think of it seriously. Old Battersby is a member for these parts,
and his seat is as firm as a rock.'

'Can't you find another seat?'

'But, my dear, even if I had any leaning that way, which I haven