The horseman was dark and clean-shaven--the happy possessor of one
of those handsome Andalusian faces which are in themselves a
passport in a world that in its old age still persists in judging by
appearance. Whittaker scrupulously withdrew from the window. He
had no desire to overhear their conversation. But his eyes were
fierce with a sudden anger. The very attitude of the new-comer--his
respectful, and yet patronizing, manner of removing his hat--clearly
showed that he was a lover, perhaps a favoured one. And the
American, who, with all his knowledge of the world, knew so little
of women, stood in the middle of the room wrapt in thought. It
seemed hardly possible that a woman of Miss Cheyne's intelligence, a
woman no longer in the first flush of girlhood, should fail to
perceive the obvious. He did not know that so far as her vanity is
concerned a woman does not grow older, by the passage of years, but
younger--that she will often, for the sake of a little admiration,
accept the careless patronage of a man, knowing well that his one
good quality is the skill with which he flatters her. He was not
aware that Miss Cheyne was distinctly handicapped, and that her
judgment was warped by the fact that she had by some chance or
another reached to years of discretion without ever having had a
lover.

Whittaker was not an impulsive man, although as prompt in action as
he was quick to make a decision. He was a citizen of that new
country where an old chivalry still survives. His sense of chivalry
was also intensified by the fact, already stated, that he knew but
little of that sex which is at the moment making a superficial stir
in the world.

"If the harm is done, a day more will make it no worse, I reckon,"