“I’m by no means sure it’s charity,” she said.  “That’s what is troubling me.  And you have no right to say such things about my husband.”

“How was I to know you were sensitive on the subject? he replied.

“I wonder what it would be like to be so utterly cynical as you,” she said.

“Do you mean to say you don’t want the house?”

“I don’t want it under those conditions,” she answered with spirit.  “I didn’t expect to be taken literally.  And you’ve always insisted,” she added, “in ascribing to me motives that—­that never occurred to me.  You make the mistake of thinking that because you have no ideals, other people haven’t.  I hope Howard hasn’t said he’d take the house.  He’s gone off somewhere, and I haven’t been able to see him.”

Trixton Brent looked at her queerly.

“After that last manoeuvre of yours,” he said, “it was all I could do to prevent him from rushing over to Jerry Shorter’s—­and signing the lease.”

She did not reply.

“What do these sudden, virtuous resolutions mean?” he asked.  “Resignation?  Quicksands for life?  Abandonment of the whole campaign?”

“There isn’t any I campaign,” she said—­and her voice caught in something like a sob.  “I’m not that sordid kind of a person.  And if I don’t like Quicksands, it’s because the whole atmosphere seems to be charged with —­with just such a spirit.”

Her hand was lying on the seat.  He covered it with his own so quickly that she left it there for a moment, as though paralyzed, while she listened to the first serious words he had ever addressed to her.

“Honora, I admire you more than any woman I have ever known,” he said.

Her breath came quickly, and she drew her hand away.

“I suppose I ought to feel complimented,” she replied.

At this crucial instant what had been a gliding flight of the automobile became, suddenly, a more or less uneven and jerky progress, accompanied by violent explosions.  At the first of these Honora, in alarm, leaped to her feet.  And the machine, after what seemed an heroic attempt to continue, came to a dead stop.  They were on the outskirts of a village; children coming home from school surrounded them in a ring.  Brent jumped out, the chauffeur opened the hood, and they peered together into what was, to Honora, an inexplicable tangle of machinery.  There followed a colloquy, in technical French, between the master and the man.

“What’s the matter?” asked Honora, anxiously.

“Nothing much,” said Brent, “spark-plugs.  We’ll fix it up in a few minutes.”  He looked with some annoyance at the gathering crowd.  “Stand back a little, can’t you?” he cried, “and give us room.”

After some minutes spent in wiping greasy pieces of steel which the chauffeur extracted, and subsequent ceaseless grinding on the crank, the engine started again, not without a series of protesting cracks like pistol shots.  The chauffeur and Brent leaped in, the bystanders parted with derisive cheers, and away they went through the village, only to announce by another series of explosions a second disaster at the other end of the street.  A crowd collected there, too.