m delays, burst officiously into his office.

"Are you Mr. Morgan Wallifarro?" he demanded, scanning a label on the
package he bore, and, as Boone shook his head, he heard Morgan's voice
behind him: "I'm the man you're looking for."

Then as the younger Wallifarro took the package from the snub-nosed
Mercury, he opened it, revealing a gold-knobbed riding crop. Once before
that morning the young attorney had halted the all-but-congested tide of
business to telephone to a florist, and through the open door Boone had
heard the order given. Then Morgan had directed that violets and orchids
be sent that evening to Miss Anne Masters. Presumably the riding crop
was bound for the same destination.

"Anne's riding some of those Canadian hunters tonight at the Horse
Show," was Morgan's casually put remark as he felt Boone's eyes upon
him. "I thought she might like this."

It was the first time that Anne's name had passed conversationally
between them since the evening when, in that same office, Morgan's
pistol had clicked harmlessly, and upon each face fell a faint shadow of
embarrassment. Then Wellver admitted, "It's a very handsome one," and
the other passed on into his own office.

Already Boone had been thinking of those Canadian hunters. It was that
which had lured his mind away from his littered desk and filled him with
the spirit of truancy.

Tonight would see the opening of the Horse Show with the fanfare of its
brass bands and the spreading of its peacock plumes of finery.

Following upon it, as musical numbers follow an overture, would come the
dances for the debutantes, and Anne would be a debutante. In that far,
tonight would be a sort of door closing against himself as one holding
no membership in that circle whose edicts were written by Fashion. It
was, however, of another phase of the matter that his present
restiveness was born. Yesterday afternoon he had slipped into the
emptiness of the Horse Show building for an inquisitive half hour, and
had seen a hard bitten stable boy trying to rehearse a stubborn roan
over the jumps.

The heavy white bars stretching between the wings of the hurdle had
looked to him--thinking then, as now, of Anne--disquietingly formidable
and full of bone-breaking possibilities. This morning she was to
acquaint herself with her mounts. She might even now be at the hazardous
business. Suddenly Boone pushed back his papers, locked the drawer of
his desk, and took down his hat and ov