"But can't break Stafford. Honestly "--he looked
at her--"I wish you could!"
"Why?" she asked, turning her eyes on him for the first time.
Howard was silent for a moment, then he looked at her with a curious
gravity.
"Because it would be good for him: because I am afraid for him."
"Afraid?" she echoed.
"Yes," he said, with a nod. "Some day he will run against something
that will bring him to smash. Some woman--But I beg your pardon. Do you
know, Miss Falconer, that you have a dangerous way of leading one to
speak the truth--which one should never--or very rarely--do. Why, on
earth am I telling you all this about Stafford Orme?"
She shrugged her shoulders.
"You were saying 'some woman,'" she said.
He gave a sigh of resignation.
"You are irresistible! Some woman who will be quite unworthy of him.
It's always the case. The block of ice you can not smash with your
biggest hammer is broken into smithereens by a needle. That's the peril
before Stafford--but let us hope he will prove the exception to the
rule and escape. He's safe at present, at any rate."
She though of the scene she had witnessed, the girl sitting sideways on
Stafford Orme's horse, and her face flushed for an instant.
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