They were quite at the end.
"Please light a cigar," she said with a little laugh. "We must not look
serious. Assume your light comedy manner as you listen, and I will wear
the true Columbine expression. We are under the eyes of the curious."
"Not too much light comedy for me," he said. "I shall look forbidding lest
your admirers bombard us."
They were quiet again.
"This is the story," she said at last, folding her hands before her. "No,
no," she added hastily, "I will not tell you the story, I will try and
picture one scene. And when I have finished, tell me if you don't think I
have a capital imagination." She drew herself up with a little gesture of
mockery. "It is comedy, you know.
"Her name was Marion Conquest. She was beautiful--they said that of her
then--and young, only sixteen. She had been very happy, for a man said
that he loved her, and she wore his ring on her finger. One day, while she
was visiting at a place far from her home, she was happier than usual. She
wished to be by herself to wonder how it was that one could be so happy.
You see, she was young and did not think often. She only lived. She took a
horse and rode far away into the woods. She came near a cottage among the
trees. She got off her horse and led it.
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