now. She would wait for the darkness. Had he heard a
tremble in her voice, Bedient would have caught her bridle-rein and
searched her face.

She clucked. Clarendon, with stables just ahead, was only too eager....
Bedient rejoined her after turning over his horse, and making the
change of clothes. Beth met him at the gate of her mother's house and
there was a smile in the evening light.

They did not sit opposite at supper. Bedient studied the little mother
at the head of the table, but with a fear in his heart. A sense of
disaster had come to him at the end of the ride. He knew nothing of
what had formed about the short sea journey in Beth's mind; he could
not have believed from her own lips that she had been tempted to hold
him with passion. He would have expected faith from her, had some
destroying tale come to her ears. He did not realize the effect upon
others, of his aptness to ignore all explanation. Especially in this
seagoing affair, he had nothing to say. It was not his way to discuss
his adventures into the happiness of others.... Beth felt his reserve
instinctively, a reason why it had been impossible for her to show him
the document of disorder.

The talk at the supper table had to do with the portrait she had
painted. Beth never forgot some of Bedient's sentences.... Then she
told him about the new life of the Grey One; of the latter's call on
Wednesday, with the great news about Torvin, and of the telephone
message yesterday.

"More buyers have been to her studio," Beth said. "You see, Torvin can
do anything. A whisper from him and they buy. The Grey One has disposed
of several of her little things at her vogue prices----"

"I'm glad," said Bedient.

"It came in the nick of time. It means more than money or pictures.
Margie Grey has won her race."

"I understand," he added.

After supper, they walked together outside. With her whole heart Beth
prayed that the day had changed him from going. She had put off until
the last moment any talk that would bring his answer. And now walking
with him in the darkness, she thought strangely of her parting with the
Other. All was forgotten save that moment of parting; all the old
intimacies had dropped from mind, banished by the sunlit god she had
met this day.... Bedient's defect would be quite as intrinsic as the
Other's--if he went to Wordling now. She could have forgiven a boyish
carelessness in either, but Beth could not forgive in any man that
unfinishe