“Oh, Marion,” he exclaimed, “do put on your hat and come round with me for a moment to the stables. That new mare I bought last week has just come. She is such a perfect beauty. Do come.” But Marion did not move, but sat there, her face turned from him, affecting to warm her hands at the fire. Then she glanced at the door which Geoffrey had left open, and said peevishly: “I wish you would remember that other people feel the cold if you don’t. The draught along the passage makes this room almost uninhabitable. Geoffrey closed the door gently, with a ready apology for his carelessness. Then he returned to the charge. “You will come out though, won’t you? I am really so anxious to show you my new purchase. She is rather young to do much work this year, but by another, she will be all I could wish. I really never saw a more beautiful creature.” “I am glad you are pleased,” said Marion, coldly, “but you must excuse my joining in the chorus of admiration which I have no doubt is going on in the stable-yard. I should I only disappoint you, for I really could not get up the proper amount of ecstasy.” Geoffrey’s face fell. “You used to take some interest in my horses, Marion,” he said, deprecatingly. “Very possibly,” she replied, in a somewhat sneering tone. “Barley-sugar isn’t a bad thing in its place. But as for living on it altogether, that’s a different matter. Long ago I could afford to be amused by your stable ‘fureur,’ now and then. But it never seem to occur to you that it’s possible to have too much even of the charms of bay mares and such-like! You must excuse my bad taste.” “I don’t understand you,” replied Geoffrey. “I cannot feel that I deserve to be taunted with having bored you with anything that interested me.” “I don’t suppose you do understand me,” she answered, in the same contemptuous manner. “You made one grand mistake, for which we are both suffering—that of imagining you ever could do so. Go back to your hones, with whom, I can assure you, you have more in common than you could ever have with me. Only do not, I beg of you, delude yourself with the idea that a being who has the misfortune to possess something in the way of mind and soul, is the right person to apply to for sympathy in the only interests you seem capable of.” The extreme contempt, the insulting scorn of her words and manner stung him to the quick. With a muttered expression of some kind, of which she could not catch the words, he turned from her sharply, and for once in his life slammed the door behind him violently, as, half mad with misery, he rushed away from the sound of her cold, mocking words.