d
turned from him with a preoccupied air. He remembered them as they
were seven years ago, when they were all Bohemians together. They
had no manners, good or bad, in those days, those young men; they
called you by strange names; they posed you in peculiar attitudes
and made abominable caricatures of your noble profile; but they
would lend or borrow a five-pound note with equal readiness; they
would give you a supper and a shake-down at any time of the night or
morning. Now it seemed they thought twice about asking you to
dinner, if indeed they thought about it at all. So Durant had been
pleasantly surprised at his godfather's genial letter. Why, bless
his little heart, the old boy had actually pressed him to stay for a
fortnight.

Well, how was he to get through that fortnight? He decided that he
would not get through it at all. He kept himself awake devising
schemes for his liberation; he would find some business to take him
up to town to-morrow; or, if he could not find it, he would invent
it; he would send himself a telegram. And then, against his will,
his mind began running on Miss Tancred. As he had been possessed by
the ideal, so now he was haunted by the reality; it had a horrible
fascination for him. He wondered if Miss Tancred had ever been
young; he wondered if Miss Tancred had ever made a joke; he wondered
if Miss Tancred had ever been in love. This third idea was so
incongruous, so impossible, that at last he found himself dallying
with it for the mere extravagant humor of the thing.

If he had only been able to make himself agreeable to Miss
Tancred--for Miss Tancred, if she had the will, had certainly the
power to help him. The unhappy young man had made a careful
inspection of the stables to see if there was a lingering chance
for him there. The sleek bays that brought him from the
station--impossible; the Colonel's cob, a creature too safe to be
exciting; and--yes, there was Miss Tancred's mare. The sight of the
fiery little beast dancing in her stall had affected him with an
uncontrollable desire to ride her. The groom, not without sympathy,
had interpreted his longing glances.

"There's a-many casts sheep's eyes at that there mare, sir; but it
'ud be as much as my place is worth, sir, to let you or any other
gentleman get atop of her. Nobody lays a 'and on that annymal but
Miss Tancred. Miss Tancred's orders, sir."

He might have known it. Miss Tancred was good for nothing, not even
for the lo