Polder went out into the dining room; where, through the doorway, Howat Penny could see him hovering over the silver basket of oranges, placed upon the sideboard. "If you don't mind," he called back, and there were a rattle of knives, a thin ring of glass. The light was dim beyond, and he stood in the doorway with the brandy decanter and orange juice. He drained the mixture and leaned, absorbed, against the woodwork. "This is a hell of a world!" he exclaimed suddenly. "Everything worth having is fenced off. A woman won't understand. Does any one suppose that I don't want Mariana! It's the responsibility. She's right--I am afraid of it. And she laughed at me. Nothing cowardly in her," his voice deepened. "It is ignorance," Howat stated. "I thought so, for a minute; you are wrong. She's had more experience than we'd get in a thousand years. The life she knows would fix that. She talked me into a tangled foolishness in five minutes; made me look like a whiskered hypocrite. Nothing I said sounded real, and yet I must be right. Suppose Harriet should turn nasty, suppose--oh, a thousand things." "It isn't arguable," Howat Penny agreed. This afforded the other no consolation. "What is she to do?" he demanded. "Mariana won't settle quietly against a wall. She told you that. She's full of--of a sort of energy that must be at something. Mariana hasn't the anchor of most women--respectability." "Am I to gather that that is no longer considered admirable?" the elder inquired. "If you gather anything you are lucky," Polder replied gloomily. "I'm not sure about my own name. Good-night," he disappeared abruptly. Above, Howat slowly made his preparations for retiring, infinitely weary. Waking problems fell from him like a leaden weight into the sea of unconsciousness. He was relieved, at breakfast, to see Mariana come down in a hat, with the jacket of her suit on an arm. He waited for her to indicate the train by which she was leaving, so that he could tell Honduras to have the motor ready; but she sat around in a dragging silence. Polder walked up and down the room in which they were gathered. Howat wished he would stop his clattering movement. An expression of ill-nature deepened in Mariana; she looked her ugliest; and James Polder was perceptibly fogged from a lack of sleep. Finally he said: