"His pocket's not much hurt. Don't let that disturb you; but it is something to send a man fifteen miles down the mountain to pack the stuff. You might very properly recognize that, if you chose." "I recognize nothing of it. Why did you not tell me how it was? I thought that you were sending for those things." "How can I send Knight's men on my errands, if you please? I don't show up very largely at the mine in person. You don't seem to realize the situation. Did you suppose that the Mule Deer men, when they fetch these things from town, know whom they are for? They may, but they are not supposed to." "Arrange it as you like, but I will not take presents from the manager of the Mule Deer." "He has dined at your table, Esmée." "Not at _my_ table," said Esmée, haughtily averting her face. "But you have been nice to him; he remembers you with distinct pleasure." "Very likely. It is my rôle to be nice to people. I should be nice to him if he came here now; but I should hate him for coming. If _he_ were nice, he would not dream of your asking him or allowing him to come." "Darling, darling, we can't keep it up like this. We are not lords of fate to that extent. Fellows will pay you attention; they always have and they always will: but you must not, dearest, imply that I am not sensitive on the point of what you may or may not receive in that way. I should make myself a laughing-stock before all men if I should begin by resenting things. I could not insult you so. I will resent nothing that a husband does not resent." "Jack, don't you understand? I could have taken it lightly once; I always used to. I can't take it lightly now. I cannot have him come here--the first to see us in this _solitude à deux_, the most intimate, the most awful--" "Of course, of course," murmured Jack. "It is awful, I admit it, for you. But it always will be. Ours is a double solitude for life, with the world always eying us askance, scoring us, or secretly envying us, or merely wondering coarsely about us. It takes tremendous courage in a woman; but you will have the courage of your honesty, your surpassing generosity to me." "Generosity!" Esmée repeated. "We shall see. I give myself just five years of this 'generosity.' After that, the beginning of the end. I shall have to eliminate myself from the problem, to be finally generous. But five years is a good while," she whispered, "to dare to love my love in, if my love loves me." There could be no doubt of this as yet. Esmée could afford to toy sentimentally with the thought of future despair and final self-elimination. "Come, come," said Waring; "this will never do; we must get some fresh air on this." He knocked the ashes out of his pipe, pocketed it, and marched into an inner room whence he fetched a warm, loose cloak and a pair of carriage boots. "Fresh air and exercise!"