The world at that moment consisted of a handful of sturdy consumptives impatiently waiting the opening of the dining-room doors. And as Roland considered that world, he mentally explored the stable. "Of course not," he answered; "if Miss Dunellen cares to go, I will have a dogcart and a groom." With that sacrifice to conventionality Mrs. Metuchen was content. For Justine to ride unchaperoned was one thing, but driving was another matter. And later on, in the cool of the afternoon, as Roland bowled the girl over the yielding sand, straight to the sunset beyond, he began again on the duo which they had already rehearsed, and when Justine called his attention to the groom, he laughed a little, and well he might. "Don't mind him," he murmured; "he is deaf." In earlier conversations he had rarely spoken of himself, and, when he had, it had been in that remote fashion which leaves the personal pronoun at the door. There is nothing better qualified to weary the indifferent than the speech in which the I jumps out; and knowing this, he knew too that that very self-effacement before one whose interest is aroused excites that interest to still higher degrees. The _Moi seul est haissable_ is an old maxim, one that we apprehend more or less to our cost no doubt, and after many a sin of egotism; but when it is learned by rote, few others serve us in better stead. In Roland's relations with Justine thus far it had served him well. It had filled her mind with questions which she did not feel she had the right to ask, and in so filling it had occupied her thoughts with him. It was through arts of this kind that Machiavelli earned his fame. But at present circumstances had changed. She had placed her hand in his; she had avowed her love. The I could now appear; its welcome was assured. And as they drove along the sand-hills she told him of herself, and drew out confidences in exchange. And such confidences! Had the groom not been deaf they might have given him food for thought. But they must have satisfied Justine, for when they reached the hotel again her eyes were so full of meaning that, had Mrs. Metuchen met her in a pantry instead of on the verandah, she could have seen unspectacled that the girl was fairly intoxicated--drunk with that headiest cup of love which is brewed not by the contact of two epiderms, but through communion of spirit and unison of heart. That evening, when supper was done, Mrs. Metuchen, to whom any breath of night was synonymous with miasmas and microbes, settled herself in the parlor, and in the company of her friends from School Lane discussed that inexhaustible topic--Who Was and Who Was Not.