boudoir. Nor can a complete
picture of life at Quicksands be undertaken. Multiply Mrs. Dallam's
dinner-party by one hundred, Howard Silence's Sundays at the Club by
twenty, and one has a very fair idea of it. It was not precisely
intellectual. "Happy," says Montesquieu, "the people whose annals are
blank in history's book." Let us leave it at that.

Late one afternoon in August Honora was riding homeward along the ocean
road. The fragrant marshes that bordered it were a vivid green under the
slanting rays of the sun, and she was gazing across them at the breakers
crashing on the beach beyond. Trixton Brent was beside her.

"I wish you wouldn't stare at me so," she said, turning to him suddenly;
"it is embarrassing."

"How did you know I was looking at you?" he asked.

"I felt it."

He drew his horse a little nearer.

"Sometimes you're positively uncanny," she added.

He laughed.

"I rather like that castles-in-Spain expression you wore," he declared.

"Castles in Spain?"

"Or in some other place where the real estate is more valuable. Certainly
not in Quicksands."

"You are uncanny," proclaimed Honora, with conviction.

"I told you you wouldn't like Quicksands," said he.

"I've never said I didn't like it," she replied. "I can't see why you
assume that I don't."

"You're ambitious," he said. "Not that I think it a fault, when it's more
or less warranted. Your thrown away here, and you know it."

She made him a bow from the saddle.

"I have not been without a reward, at least," she answered, and looked at
him.

"I have," said he.

Honora smiled.

"I'm going to be your good angel, and help you get out of it," he
continued.

"Get out of what?"

"Quicksands."

"Do you think I'm in danger of sinking?" she asked. "And is it impossible
for me to get out alone, if I wished to?"

"It will be easier with my help," he answered. "You're clever enough to
realize that--Honora."

She was silent awhile.

"You say the most extraordinary things," she remarked presently.
"Sometimes I think they are almost--"

"Indelicate," he supplied.

She coloured.

"Yes, indelicate."

"You can't forgive me for sweeping away your rose-coloured cloud of
romance," he declared, laughing. "There are spades in the pack, however
much you may wish to ignore 'em. You know very well you don't like these
Quicksands people. They grate on your finer sensibilities, and all that
sort of thing. Come, now, isn't it so?"

She