en her dark eyes met Lansing's
steel-gray ones.

"Good-morning, once more," she said, mockingly.

He returned her greeting, and began to change his mist leader for a
white one.

"Will you kindly let Jack Coursay alone?" she said, in a low voice.

"No," he replied, in the same tone.

"Are you serious?" she asked, as though the idea amused her.

"Of course," he replied, pleasantly.

"Is it true that you came here because he came?" she inquired, with
faint sarcasm in her eyes.

"Yes," he answered, with perfect good-nature. "You see he's my own kin;
you see I'm the old-fashioned sort--a perfect fool, Mrs. Sprowl."

There was a silence; he unwound the glistening leader; she flicked at
shadows with her dog-whip; the Great Danes yawned and laid their heavy
heads against her knees.

"Then you _are_ a fool," she concluded, serenely.

He was young enough to redden.

Three years ago she had thought it time to marry somebody, if she ever
intended to marry at all; so she threw over half a dozen young fellows
like Coursay, and married Sprowl. For two years her beauty, audacity,
and imprudence kept a metropolis and two capitals in food for scandal.
And now for a year gossip was coupling her name with Coursay's.

"I warned you at Palm Beach that I'd stop this," said Lansing, looking
directly into her eyes. "You see, I know his mother."

"Stop what?" she asked, coolly.

He went on: "Jack is a curiously decent boy; he views his danger without
panic, but with considerable surprise. But nobody can tell what he may
do. As for me, I'm indifferent, liberal, and reasonable in my views of
... other people's conduct. But Jack is not one of those 'other people,'
you see."

"And _I_ am?" she suggested, serenely.

"Exactly; I'm not your keeper."

"So you confine your attention to Jack and the Decalogue?"

"As for the Commandments," observed Lansing, "any ass can shatter them
with his hind heels, so why should he? If he _must_ be an ass, let him
be an original ass--not a cur."

"A cur," repeated Agatha Sprowl, unsteadily.

"An _affaire de coeur_ with a married woman is an affair do cur," said
Lansing, calmly--"Gallicize it as you wish, make it smart and
fashionable as you can. I told you I was old-fashioned.... And I mean
it, madam."

The leader had eluded him; he uncoiled it again; she mechanically took
it between her delicate fingers and held it steady while he measured and
shortened it by six inches.

"Do you think,