e of proportion. The awkward thing is
that it lays you under an eternal obligation to do something or
other for them, you don't know exactly what; an intolerable position
for a nice man.

So Durant's first feelings were surprise, annoyance, and a certain
shame. Then he began to feel a little flattered, being perfectly
sure that Frida Tancred was not the woman to give herself away to
any ordinary man. He was the first, the only one, the one in a
thousand, who had broken down her implacable reserve. He ended by
feeling positively proud of his power to draw out the soul of a
creature so reticent and passionless and strange.

His time was not yet up, and the question was: Ought he to go or
stay? He would have found or invented some pretext, and left long
ago, but that in him the love of pleasure brought with it an equal
fear of giving pain. It would give pain to the Colonel (who, after
all, had received him kindly) if he went before his time. By the art
of graceful evasion Durant had escaped many such an old gentleman as
the Colonel; but when it came to doing the really disagreeable and
ungraceful thing it seemed that his courage failed him.

There was no doubt in Miss Tancred's mind on the delicate point. She
was even capable of making a sacrifice to keep him.

He met her one morning riding on her black mare. Miss Tancred looked
well on horseback; the habit, the stiff collar, the hard hat, were
positively becoming, perhaps because they left no room for
decorative caprice. She drew up, and Durant ran his hand lovingly
over the warm shining neck and shoulders of the mare. Miss Tancred's
eyes followed the movements of his hand, then they traveled up his
tall figure and down again.

"Your legs are rather long," said she, "and you're heavier than I
am; but you can ride her if you like."

"I shouldn't think of it," said Durant, magnificently mendacious. He
had been very early enlightened as to his chances with the mare; but
the temptation to ride her had never died in him.

"Unless you ride," she continued, "there is nothing for you to do
here. Then you'll be bored to death; and then, I suppose, you'll
go?"

"And bury myself? And then?"

"You won't be buried long. You'll rise again fast enough, somewhere
else."

"And what if I do go and do all these things?"

"Well, I don't want you to go--and do them."

She moved on, and he walked beside her, his hand on the mare's mane.

"I can't think why you've stopped so l