ch other is--unconsecrated."

"It consecrates itself," I declared.

She shook her head.

"Surely it has its roots in everything that is fine in both of us."

"We both went wrong," said Nancy. "We both sought to wrest power and
happiness from the world, to make our own laws. How can we assert
that--this is not merely a continuation of it?"

"But can't we work out our beliefs together?" I demanded. "Won't you
trust me, trust our love for one another?"

Her breath came and went quickly.

"Oh, you know that I want you, Hugh, as much as you want me, and more.
The time may come when I can't resist you."

"Why do you resist me?" I cried, seizing her hands convulsively, and
swept by a gust of passion at her confession.

"Try to understand that I am fighting for both of us!" she pleaded--an
appeal that wrung me in spite of the pitch to which my feelings had been
raised. "Hugh, dear, we must think it out. Don't now."

I let her hands drop....

Beyond the range of hills rising from the far side of the Ashuela was the
wide valley in which was situated the Cloverdale Country Club, with its
polo field, golf course and tennis courts; and in this same valley some
of our wealthy citizens, such as Howard Ogilvy and Leonard Dickinson, had
bought "farms," week-end playthings for spring and autumn. Hambleton
Durrett had started the fashion. Capriciously, as he did everything else,
he had become the owner of several hundred acres of pasture, woodland and
orchard, acquired some seventy-five head of blooded stock, and proceeded
to house them in model barns and milk by machinery; for several months he
had bored everyone in the Boyne Club whom he could entice into
conversation on the subject of the records of pedigreed cows, and spent
many bibulous nights on the farm in company with those parasites who
surrounded him when he was in town. Then another interest had intervened;
a feminine one, of course, and his energies were transferred (so we
understood) to the reconstruction and furnishing of a little residence in
New York, not far from Fifth Avenue. The farm continued under the expert
direction of a superintendent who was a graduate of the State
Agricultural College, and a select clientele, which could afford to pay
the prices, consumed the milk and cream and butter. Quite consistent with
their marital relations was the fact that Nancy should have taken a fancy
to the place after Ham's interest had waned. Not that she cared for the