“Have you sent your ponies out?”

“Only two.  I want to show you one I bought from the Government almost for nothing.  Remount man piped me off.  Light in flesh, rather, but fast.  Handy, light mouth—­all he needs is a bit of training.”

They had been in the open country for some time, but now they were approaching the Cardew’s Friendship plant.  The furnaces had covered the fields with a thin deposit of reddish ore dust.  Such blighted grass as grew had already lost its fresh green, and the trees showed stunted blossoms.  The one oasis of freshness was the polo field itself, carefully irrigated by underground pipes.  The field, with its stables and grandstand, had been the gift of Anthony Cardew, thereby promoting much discussion with his son.  For Howard had wanted the land for certain purposes of his own, to build a clubhouse for the men at the plant, with a baseball field.  Finding his father obdurate in that, he had urged that the field be thrown open to the men and their families, save immediately preceding and during the polo season.  But he had failed there, too.  Anthony Cardew had insisted, and with some reason, that to use the grounds for band concerts and baseball games, for picnics and playgrounds, would ruin the turf for its legitimate purpose.

Howard had subsequently found other land, and out of his own private means had carried out his plans, but the location was less desirable.  And he knew what his father refused to believe, that the polo ground, taking up space badly needed for other purposes, was a continual grievance.

Suddenly Pink stared ahead.

“I say,” he said, “have they changed the rule about that sort of thing?”

He pointed to the field.  A diamond had been roughly outlined on it with bags of sand, and a ball-game was in progress, boys playing, but a long line of men watching from the side lines.

“I don’t know, but it doesn’t hurt anything.”

“Ruins the turf, that’s all.”  He stopped the car and got out.  “Look at this sign.  It says ’ball-playing or any trespassing forbidden on these grounds.’  I’ll clear them off.”

“I wouldn’t, Pink.  They may be ugly.”

But he only smiled at her reassuringly, and went off.  She watched him go with many misgivings, his sturdy young figure, his careful dress, his air of the young aristocrat, easy, domineering, unconsciously insolent.  They would resent him, she knew, those men and boys.  And after all, why should they not use the field?  There was injustice in that sign.

Yet her liking and real sympathy were with Pink.

“Pink!” she called, “Come back here.  Let them alone.”

He turned toward her a face slightly flushed with indignation and set with purpose.

“Sorry.  Can’t do it, Lily.  This sort of thing’s got to be stopped.”

She felt, rather hopelessly, that he was wrong, but that he was right, too.  The grounds were private property.  She sat back and watched.