ey wanted with us. No, I only do it
because she," he nodded toward Miss Falkener, "makes me."

Cora, looking very handsome, laughed.

"He's a poet," she said.

"Is that why he has to hunt?" asked Crane, and he wondered if poetry had
anything to do with the excellence of the young man's coat and boots.

"Yes, poets have to be athletic nowadays. It's the fashion, and a very
good one, too."

"There are other forms of athletics I don't hate nearly as much,"
Lefferts went on to Crane, "swimming, for instance, and sailing, and
even walking isn't so bad. It doesn't need so much preparation, and
getting up early in the morning, and all that sort of thing."

"Fortunately, I know what's best for him," said Cora.

"She makes me think she does," said the poet, still plaintively.

Crane wanted to ask Cora where and how she had acquired this rather
agreeable responsibility, but he had no opportunity before they were
off.

He and Cora started together, less, perhaps, from chivalry on Burton's
part than because of his desire to watch the performance of the mare,
but in the course of the run they became separated, and he finally
jogged home alone.

He dismounted in the stable-yard and stood watching one of the grooms
loosening the saddle-girths, while he and the head man discussed the
excellent conduct of his own horses as compared with the really pitiable
showing of other people's, and debated whether the wretched
deterioration in a certain Canadian bay horse ridden that day by the
Master of Hounds was owing to naturally poor conformation on the part of
the horse, or deplorable lack of judgment on the part of the rider.

In the midst of these absorbing topics, Crane suddenly became aware that
Smithfield was waiting for him at the gateway. He stopped short in what
he was saying.

"You wanted to speak to me, Smithfield?"

"When you've finished, sir."

Crane had finished, he said, and turned in the direction of the house
with the butler at his side.

"There's been a terrible disturbance at the house, sir, since you went
out this morning."

"Oh, my powers!" cried Burton. "What has been happening now?"

Smithfield was stepping along, throwing out his feet and resting on the
ball of his foot with the walk that Mrs. Falkener had so much admired.

"Well, sir," he said, "the trouble has been between Mr. Tucker and
Brindlebury."

Crane groaned.

"I don't defend the boy, sir. I fear he forgot his place."

"Look here, S