To his surprise Ben Sansome found himself warming to what he considered a real passion. At least it was as real a passion as he was capable of feeling. Sansome had always been spoiled. Accustomed as he was to easy conquests, especially of late among the faster San Francisco women of the early days, Nan Keith's very aloofness attracted him. She dwelt in a serene atmosphere of unsuspicion, going about freely with him, taking their right relations for granted, and not thinking about them. Contemplating this, Sansome was clever enough to see that, a false move at the wrong time would do for him. Therefore, he occupied himself at first merely in making himself useful. He accepted Keith's role for him, becoming the friend of the family, dropping in often and informally, happening on the spot at just the right time to relieve Keith of the necessity of escorting Nan to this or that tea or ball. So well did he play his part that at last there came a time when Keith said:

"I'm dead tired to-night, Nan. Seems as if I couldn't stand chatter. Can't you send a note around to Ben and see if he can't get you there and back?"

This came to be a regular thing. If Sansome did not happen to be there, he was sent for. And his engagements were never such that he failed to accept.

He and Keith called each other by their given names; but even after a close intimacy had been established, he never addressed Nan by hers.

"You sound very formal," she hinted to him at last.

"To me the privilege of calling you by your 'little name' is so great an evidence of friendship, that it actually seems like flaunting that friendship to call you so before others" he replied.

Always after that he called her "Nan" when they were alone together, but "Mrs. Keith" when a third, even Keith himself, was present. In that way their tete-a-tetes were marked off a little. When alone with her he maintained the pose of one struggling manfully against tremendous temptations held back only by her sweet influence. But he never overdid it. As they came to know each other better, he talked ever the more freely of men's mysterious temptations. Nan could not define to herself exactly what they might be.

"Yesterday I couldn't see you," he told her. "I struggled with myself all day. Good God, what does a woman like you know of a man's weaknesses and temptations--But I conquered."

Nan was uneasy. She did not know quite what it was all about, but her instincts warned her.

"I am glad," she replied; and went on hastily, "but you must tell me what you think about having the tea served in the arbour on the seventh, I've been dying to ask you."

With an obvious effort to be cheerful about this fresh subject, he wrenched himself into a new mood. They consulted on the party for the seventh. He broke off abruptly to say: "Do you know you're an extraordinary person--but you are!" he overrode her protests. "Don't I know the ordinary kind? Women have a deep strength of their own that men cannot understand."

He stayed only a few minutes after that. On parting he for the first time permitted himself a lingering gaze into her eyes as he reluctantly relinquished her hand. She turned away, distinctly uneasy. Yet so skilfully had he woven, his illusion of dependence on her that she shook it off with a tender and maternal smile.

"Poor boy," she murmured. "He is so unhappy and alone!"

Sansome was an accomplished equestrian. Finding that Nan knew nothing whatever about riding, he procured her a gentle horse, and took the greatest trouble and pleasure in teaching her. She proved apt, for she had good natural control of her body. After the first uncertainty and the first stiffness had worn off, she delighted in long rides toward different parts of the peninsula. Gringo, now a full-grown dog inclining toward the shepherd more than anything else, delighted in them, too. He ranged far and wide in front of the horses, exploring every ditch and thicket, wallowing happily in every mudhole, returning occasionally to roll his comical eyes at them as though to say, "Aren't we having a good time?" for Gringo was a dog with a sense of humour. On these excursions she renewed acquaintance with the sand dunes, and the little canons with birds, and the broad beach at low tide on which it was glorious to gallop. Once or twice they even stopped at the little rancho where the Keiths had lunched. There Nan, through Sansome, who talked Spanish, was able to communicate with her kindly hosts; and Gringo met his honoured but rather snappy mother. The mother disowned him utterly. As the days grew shorter they often rode on the Presidio hills, watching the sun set beyond the Golden Gate.

One such evening they had reined up their horses atop one of the hills next the Gate. The sun had set somewhere beyond the headlands. Tamalpais was deep pink with the glow; the water in the Gate w............