When she had risen to leave, he had followed her into the entry.  She recalled him vividly as he had stood before her then, a cigar in one hand and a lighted match in the other, his eyes fixed upon her with a singularly disquieting look that was tinged, however, with amusement.  “I’m coming to see you,” he announced.

“Do be careful,” she had cried, “you’ll burn yourself!”

“That,” he answered, tossing away the match, “is to be expected.”

She laughed nervously.

“Good night,” he added, “and remember my bet.”

What could he have meant when he had declared that she would not remain in Quicksands?

CHAPTER VI

GAD AND MENI

There was an orthodox place of worship at Quicksands, a temple not merely opened up for an hour or so on Sunday mornings to be shut tight during the remainder of the week although it was thronged with devotees on the Sabbath.  This temple, of course, was the Quicksands Club.  Howard Spence was quite orthodox; and, like some of our Puritan forefathers, did not even come home to the midday meal on the first day of the week.  But a certain instinct of protest and of nonconformity which may have been remarked in our heroine sent her to St. Andrews-by-the-Sea—­by no means so well attended as the house of Gad and Meni.  She walked home in a pleasantly contemplative state of mind through a field of daisies, and had just arrived at the hedge m front of the Brackens when the sound of hoofs behind her caused her to turn.  Mr. Trixton Brent, very firmly astride of a restive, flea-bitten polo pony, surveyed her amusedly.

“Where have you been?” said he.

“To church,” replied Honora, demurely.

“Such virtue is unheard of in Quicksands.”

“It isn’t virtue,” said Honora.

“I had my doubts about that, too,” he declared.

“What is it, then?” she asked laughingly, wondering why he had such a faculty of stirring her excitement and interest.

“Dissatisfaction,” was his prompt reply.

“I don’t see why you say that,” she protested.

“I’m prepared to make my wager definite,” said he.  “The odds are a thoroughbred horse against a personally knitted worsted waistcoat that you won’t stay in Quicksands six months.”

“I wish you wouldn’t talk nonsense,” said Honora, “and besides, I can’t knit.”

There was a short silence during which he didn’t relax his disconcerting stare.

“Won’t you come in?” she asked.  “I’m sorry Howard isn’t home.”

“I’m not,” he said promptly.  “Can’t you come over to my box for lunch?  I’ve asked Lula Chandos and Warry Trowbridge.”