She gave him a look that was both rebuking and rebuked, and urged her horse along. But a little later her response to beauty filled her again with the contentment of repletion, and she checked her horse by the marble-walled pool, whose surface was broken and circled here and there by gleaming red fish with lacy fins and tails; they were darting and leaping in acrobatic ecstasies.

"They're making love, too, I suppose," Persis said, a trifle anxiously.

And he was still aggrieved enough to answer: "And the fish ladies also select the gentleman with the most gold."

She stared at him a moment, hurt and shamed. Then she flung back at him:

"Then you oughtn't to blame us--us other females for making the wisest choice we can. It must be a law of nature."

"It must be," he sighed, so humbly that she regretted her victory. She would have put out her hand to comfort him, but she saw above them Willie Enslee leaning across the bal.u.s.trade. She lifted her horse into a jog-trot, and they rode into the court, where a chauffeur waited to take the horses to the stable.

Willie greeted them in his whiniest tone.

"Where on earth were you? We've been home for ages."

"We got off the main road," Persis said, as she climbed the steps, followed by Forbes, "and the horses were tired and--"

"I was awfully anxious. I was about to start out to look for you."

"There was no occasion to be anxious."

"Besides, your father telephoned you."

"My father! Is he back in New York?"

"No; he telephoned from Chicago. He was just leaving on the twenty-hour train. He couldn't wait till you got back."

"What did he have to say?"

"Lots." Willie looked uneasily at Forbes, as if he were in the way.

"I'll be changing for dinner," Forbes said, with uncomfortable haste.

"You'd better be cooking the dinner," Willie said. "Winifred is counting on your soldierly experience to help her out."

So Forbes went to the kitchen to salute and report for duty. As he entered the house he looked back to see Enslee leading Persis toward the marble steps to the little temple where he proposed regularly.

Forbes' heart thudded heavily in his breast. He felt helpless to protest or intervene in any way. Persis was up at auction. He had bidden her in under a misapprehension of the upset price, and she was put back for sale again.

CHAPTER x.x.xIX

As she mounted the steps with Willie, Persis felt something of Forbes'

regret. She was a slave on the block, and the man she wanted for owner was crowded from the mart.

"What did father have to say?" she asked, in a dull tone already despairing.

"I--I--it wasn't very pleasant."

"Hand it to me."

"He said to break it to you gently."

"Well, speak up, Willie. Break it! For the Lord's sake, break it!"

"Sit down, won't you?" He led her to a bench in the temple. "I hardly know where to begin."

"Begin at the ending."

"Well, you see, your poor governor--"

"Has lost all his money?"

"Well, yes--in a way."

"It's getting to be rather a habit with the poor old boy, isn't it? Is he smashed up badly?"

"Pretty badly."

"The house in town and the country place will have to go?"

"I'm afraid so."

"The cars and the horses--my car, too?"

"Looks like it."

"Then I needn't worry about it's being a last year's model," she laughed. Willie stared at her admiringly.

"Gad, but you're a good loser."

"I try to be; an easy winner, an easy loser. I'm awfully sorry for father, though. Did you--did you tell him anything?"

"I told him we were engaged."

She shivered and mumbled, "What did he say to that?"

"He seemed immensely relieved. He said, 'G.o.d bless her.' His voice was very faint, but I think that's what he said."

"Perhaps he said, 'G.o.d help her.'"

"Maybe he did," Willie sighed. "Anyway, we're to meet him in town to-morrow."

He stared at her with hungry eyes, and his little lean fingers crept toward the exquisite hand of hers that lay supine, relaxed, with upturned fingers like the petals of an open rose. He took that flower in his hands timidly. She looked down into his famished eyes and smiled pitifully--perhaps a little for him, certainly for herself.

He overestimated the tenderness in her gaze and squeezed her fingers in his. She winced and drew her hand away.