Yet that splendid-hearted creature which could out-game his fields in a smothering drive when his heart was near bursting had been a disappointment in two-year-old form because he had seemed to sulk and falter and lack courage. Under the whip his speed died and his petulance cropped out. It had only been when a jockey was found whose soft touch of the reins nursed the head and held it up and encouraged, that the horse had come in to his own and made his name great. Might it not be so with a man as well as with a horse? "Yes," she said, "it has been a bit of a trial, but it has been funny, too," and straightway she launched into a flow of anecdote that touched up with whimsical and delightful humor every bit of poor comedy that had tinged the days of the tour. And as she talked the man laughed with sheer delight and amusement. But it was growing late, and Marcia was exhausted with the outflow of spirits. He might be comforted, but tomorrow she must again take up the dull thread of her routine. It would not be easier for tonight's disappointment; for the coming of the rescuing knight who upon arrival had only clamored mournfully for assistance. After all she could only stand so much, and just now she felt that the margin of endurance was narrow. Yet there was to be said the most important thing of all, and the most trying. "Paul," she began slowly, but in a voice of finality, "when you go back tomorrow, you mustn't come to see me again. At least not for a long while." His face became a mask of tragic disappointment, and his voice was pleading. "You are not going to reinstate your sentence of banishment, Marcia? You can't know what this evening has meant to me. A man must have in his life that comfort that only a woman like you can give. Surely you will give it." "But, Paul," she said as gently as she would have argued with a child, "you must remember. There is a woman: a woman to whom you regard yourself pledged. Are you being very loyal to her? Are you being very loyal to either of us?" To herself she added: "A woman whom I have never seen and whose battles I am called upon to fight." "She's in Europe." Paul spoke rather sullenly, and though he said no more his voice intimated that so far as he was concerned she might remain there. Marcia nodded her bend. "She is there to get a divorce--so that she can marry you. No, Paul, you know why I sent you away in the first place. Since then nothing has changed--unless it is that I see more clearly the fatality of drifting. I can't do it." "And you--" he spoke somewhat brokenly--"doesn't it mean anything to you?" Suddenly and momentarily her self-restraint broke.