olly enough down there," he commented at last, moodily.

"That's a good reason for our joining them, isn't it?" Her tone was at
once casual and pointed.

"But I don't want to join them!" he protested. "Why don't you stay with
me--and talk?" "But you bully me so," she offered in explanation.

The phrase caught his attention. Could it be that it expressed her
real feeling? She had said, he recalled, that he had made her talk. Her
complaint was like an admission that he could overpower her will. If
that were true--then he had resources of masterfulness still in reserve
sufficient to win any victory.

"No--not bully you," he said slowly, as if objecting to the word rather
than the idea. "That wouldn't be possible to me. But you don't know me
well enough to understand me. I am the kind of man who gets the things
he wants. Let me tell you something: When I was at Hadlow, I had never
shot a pheasant in my life. I used to do tolerably well with a rifle,
but I hardly knew anything about a shot-gun, and I don't suppose I'd
ever killed more than two or three birds on the wing--and that was ages
ago. But I took the notion that I would shoot better than anybody else
there. I made up my mind to it--and I simply did it, that's all. I don't
know if you remember--but I killed a good deal more than both the others
put together. I give you that as an example. I wanted you to think that
I was a crack shot--and so I made myself be a crack shot."

"That is very interesting," she murmured. They did not seem to be
walking quite so fast.

"Don't think I want to brag about myself," he went on. "I don't fancy
myself--in that way. I'm not specially proud of doing things--it's the
things themselves that I care for. If some men had made a great fortune,
they would be conceited about it. Well, I'm not. What I'm keen about is
the way to use that fortune so that I will get the most out of it--the
most happiness, I mean. The thing to do is to make up your mind
carefully what it is that you want, and to put all your power and
resolution into getting it--and the rest is easy enough. I don't think
there's anything beyond a strong man's reach, if he only believes enough
in himself."

"But aren't you confusing two things?" she queried. The subject
apparently interested her. "To win one's objects by sheer personal force
is one thing. To merely secure them because one's purse is longer than
other people's--that's quite another matter."

He smiled grim