here could be no regret arising from the
Incomprehensible Finality, and that nobody involved cared, much less
suffered. Hence _that_ was certainly not the cause of any erratic or
specific phenomena exhibited by this sample of man who differed, as she
had noticed, somewhat from the rank and file of his neutral-tinted
brothers.

"It's this particular specimen, _per se_," she concluded; "it's himself,
_sui generis_--just as I happen to have red hair. That is all."

And she rode on quite happily, content, confident of his interest and
kindness. For she had never forgotten his warm response to her when she
stood on the threshold of her first real dinner party, in her first real
dinner gown--a trivial incident, trivial words! But they had meant more
to her than any man specimen could understand--including the man who had
uttered them; and the violets, which she found later with his card, must
remain for her ever after the delicately fragrant symbol of all he had
done for her in a solitude, the completeness of which she herself was
only vaguely beginning to realise.

Thinking of this now, she thought of her brother--and the old hurt at
his absence on that night throbbed again. Forgive? Yes. But how could
she forget it?

"I wish you knew Gerald well," she said impulsively; "he is such a dear
fellow; and I think you'd be good for him--and besides," she hastened to
add, with instinctive loyalty, lest he misconstrue, "Gerald would be
good for you. We were a great deal together--at one time."

He nodded, smilingly attentive.

"Of course when he went away to school it was different," she added.
"And then he went to Yale; that was four more years, you see."

"I was a Yale man," remarked Selwyn; "did he--" but he broke off
abruptly, for he knew quite well that young Erroll could have made no
senior society without his hearing of it. And he had not heard of
it--not in the cane-brakes of Leyte where, on his sweat-soaked shirt, a
small pin of heavy gold had clung through many a hike and many a scout
and by many a camp-fire where the talk was of home and of the chances of
crews and of quarter-backs.

"What were you going to ask me, Captain Selwyn?"

"Did he row--your brother Gerald?"

"No," she said. She did not add that he had broken training; that was
her own sorrow, to be concealed even from Gerald. "No; he played polo
sometimes. He rides beautifully, Captain Selwyn, and he is so clever
when he cares to be--at the traps, fo