fault if people told them their secrets.  Dexter Freer was a tall lean man, with an interested eye and a nose that rather drooped than aspired, yet was salient withal.  He brushed his hair, which was streaked with white, forward over his ears and into those locks represented in the portraits of clean-shaven gentlemen who flourished fifty years ago and wore an old-fashioned neckcloth and gaiters.  His wife, a small plump person, rather polished than naturally fresh, with a white face and hair still evenly black, smiled perpetually, but had never laughed since the death of a son whom she had lost ten years after her marriage.  Her husband, on the other hand, who was usually quite grave, indulged on great occasions in resounding mirth.  People confided in her less than in him, but that mattered little, as she confided much in herself.  Her dress, which was always black or dark grey, was so harmoniously simple that you could see she was fond of it; it was never smart by accident or by fear.  She was full of intentions of the most judicious sort and, though perpetually moving about the world, had the air of waiting for every one else to pass.  She was celebrated for the promptitude with which she made her sitting-room at an inn, where she might be spending a night or two, appear a real temple of memory.  With books, flowers, photographs, draperies, rapidly distributed—she had even a way, for the most part, of not failing of a piano—the place seemed almost hereditary.  The pair were just back from America, where they had spent three months, and now were able to face the world with something of the elation of people who have been justified of a stiff conviction.  They had found their native land quite ruinous.

“There he is again!” said Mr. Freer, following with his eyes a young man who passed along the Row, riding slowly.  “That’s a beautiful thoroughbred!”

Mrs. Freer asked idle questions only when she wanted time to think.  At present she had simply to look and see who it was her husband meant.  “The horse is too big,” she remarked in a moment.

“You mean the rider’s too small,” her husband returned.  “He’s mounted on his millions.”

“Is it really millions?”

“Seven or eight, they tell me.”

“How disgusting!”  It was so that Mrs. Freer usually spoke of the large fortunes of the day.  “I wish he’d see us,” she added.

“He does see us, but he doesn’t like to look at us.  He’s too conscious.  He isn’t easy.”

“Too conscious of his big horse?”

“Yes and of his big fortune.  He’s rather ashamed of that.”

“This is an odd place to hang one’s head in,” said Mrs. Freer.

“I’m not so sure.  He’ll find people here richer than himself, and other big horses in plenty, and that will cheer him up.  Perhaps too he’s looking for that girl.”

“The one we heard about?  He can’t be such a fool.”

“He isn’t a fool,” said Dexter Freer.  “If he’s thinking of her he has some good reason.”

“I wonder what Mary Lemon would say,” his wife pursued.

“She’d say it was all right if he should do it.  She thinks he can do no wrong.  He’s immensely fond of her.”

“I shan’t be sure of that,” said Mrs. Freer, “if he takes home a wife who’ll despise her.”

“Why should the girl despise her?  She’s a delightful woman.”

“The girl will never know it—and if she should it would make no difference: she’ll despise everything.”

“I don’t believe it, my dear; she’ll like some things very much.  Every one will be very nice to her.”

“She’ll despise them all the more.  But we’re speaking as if it were all arranged.  I don’t believe in it at all,” said Mrs. Freer.

“Well, something of the sort—in this case or in some other—is sure to happen sooner or later,” her husband replied, turning round a little toward the back-water, as it were, formed, near the entrance to the Park, by the confluence of the two great vistas of the Drive and the Row.

Our friends had turned their backs, as I have said, to the solemn revolution of wheels and the densely-packed mass of spectators who had chosen that aspect of the show.  These spectators were now agitated by a unanimous impulse: the pushing-back of chairs, the shuffle of feet, the rustle of garments and the deepening murmur of voices sufficiently expressed it.  Royalty was approaching—royalty was passing—royalty had passed.  Mr. Freer turned his head and his ear a little, but failed to alter his position further, and his wife took no notice of the flurry.  They had seen royalty pass, all over Europe, and they knew it passed very quickly.  Sometimes it came back; sometimes it didn’t; more than once they had seen it pass for the last time.  They were veteran tourists and they knew as perfectly as regular attendants at complicated church-services when to get up and when to remain seated.  Mr. Freer went on with his proposition.  “Some young fellow’s certain to do it, and one of these girls is certain to take the risk.  They must take risks over here more and more.”

“The girls, I’ve no doubt, will be glad enough; they have had very little chance as yet.  But I don’t want Jackson to begin.”

“Do you know I rather think I do,” said Dexter Freer.  “It will be so very amusing.”

“For us perhaps, but not for him.  He’ll repent of it and be wretched.  He’s too good for that.”

“Wretched never!  He has no capacity for wretchedness, and that’s why he can afford to risk it.”

“He’ll have to make great concessions,” Mrs. Freer persisted.

“He won’t make one.”

“I should like to see.”

“You admit, then, that it will be amusing: all I contend for,” her husband replied.  “But, as you say, we’re talking as if it were settled, whereas there’s probably nothing in it after all.  The best stories always turn out false.  I shall be sorry in this case.”

They relapsed into silence while people passed and repassed them—continuous successive mechanical, with strange facial, strange expressional, sequences and contrasts.  They watched the procession, but no one heeded them, though every one was there so admittedly to see what was to be seen.  It was all striking, all pictorial, and it made a great composition.  The wide long area of the Row, its red-brown surface dotted with bounding figures, stretched away into the distance and became suffused and misty in the bright thick air.  The deep dark English verdure that bordered and overhung it looked rich and old, revived and refreshed though it was by the breath of June.  The mild blue of the sky was spotted with great silvery clouds, and the light drizzled down in heavenly shafts over the quieter spaces of the Park, as one saw them beyond the Row.  All this, however, was only a background, for the scene was before everything personal; quite splendidly so, and full of the gloss and lustre, the contrasted tones, of a thousand polished surfaces.  Certain things were salient, pervasive—the shining flanks of the perfect horses, the twinkle of bits and spurs, the smoothness of fine cloth adjusted to shoulders and limbs, the sheen of hats and boots, the freshness of complexions, the expression of smiling talking faces, the flash and flutter of rapid gallops.  Faces were everywhere, and they were the great effect—above all the fair faces of women on tall horses, flushed a little under their stiff black hats, with figures stiffened, in spite of much definition of curve, by their tight-fitting habits.  Their well-secured helmets, their neat compact