"Don't hit a man when he's down," said Loveland. "If I had only half as much as Mr. Cremer, I could do the things I want most to do."
"What are they?" asked Lesley. For it was still some distance to the stable which was also, for the present, garage as well, and she walked slowly on the moist grass, picking her way, step by step, with leisurely daintiness.
"Nowadays, the things I feel I should like most to do are to restore our poor old tumbled-down home, and get rid of my debts."
"You say 'nowadays.' Have you changed your mind lately?"
"I've changed almost everything--except these everlasting tweeds! I know, of course, that my affairs will come right in _one_ way, presently. I shall get back to England before my leave's up: but I shan't go back the same man. The things that pleased me most before, won't be the things to please me most in future. I feel that, somehow."
"Things will come right only in _one_ way, for you?" she echoed.
"Only in one way. I've lost the chance of all that's the best worth having--if I ever could have had such a chance."
"You're too young to give up hope. Almost as young as Sidney Cremer."
"And has been a successful novelist and playwright for three years? He's a sort of infant phenomenon."
"Think of Pitt," Lesley reminded him, smiling.
"Once you said you didn't like men under twenty-six--they seemed so raw."
"I ought to be flattered that you should remember my sayings of 'once.' You see, though, Sidney's quite different from--other men, especially to me. But here we are at the stables. We'll talk about Sidney's car, instead of Sidney."
"Just one question first!" exclaimed Loveland, stopping short in front of the old-fashioned but neatly kept stables, and spacious Southern barn. "I know I haven't any right to ask it, but--were you engaged to Cremer when we crossed together on the _Mauretania_?"
"My relations with Sidney were then exactly what they are now," replied the girl, with a pretty primness that made her mouth look as if she had just said, "prunes, prisms, propriety."
His last hope gone--since Lesley had not accepted Cremer out of pique--Loveland was silenced.
A darkey groom, who came forward grinning, opened the doors of an inverted loose-box, and showed a fine black and scarlet motor-car, glittering with varnish, brass, and newness.