train, turned back towards her party, Delaine looked down upon her, at
once anxious to strike the right note, and moodily despondent of
doing it.

"Evidently, two very good fellows!" he said in his rich, ponderous
voice. "You gave them a great pleasure by going to talk to them."

"I?" cried Elizabeth. "They are a perfect pair of gentlemen!--and it is
very kind of them to drive us!"

Delaine laughed uneasily.

"The gradations here are bewildering--or rather the absence of
gradations."

"One gets down to the real thing," said Elizabeth, rather hotly.

Delaine laughed again, with a touch of bitterness.

"The real thing? What kind of reality? There are all sorts."

Elizabeth was suddenly conscious of a soreness in his tone. She tried to
walk warily.

"I was only thinking," she protested, "of the chances a man gets in this
country of showing what is in him."

"Remember, too," said Delaine, with spirit, "the chances that he
misses!"