Young blood is prone
enough to adventure; the merest spark will set it akindle. I should
like to have known that girl. She must have been very clever. Because,
of course, she couldn't have foreseen, even by the surest instinct,
the coincidence that brought Harber and Barton together. Yes, there
is a coincidence in it. It's precisely upon that, you see, that
Harber hangs his belief.
I wonder, too, how many of those argosies she sent out seeking the
golden fleece returned to her? It's a fine point for speculation. If
one only knew.... ah, but it's pitiful how much one doesn't, and
can't, know in this hard and complex world! Or was it merely that
she tired of them and wanted to be rid of them? Or again, do I wrong
her there, and were there no more than the two of them, and did she
simply suffer a solitary revulsion of feeling, as Harber did? But no,
I'm sure I'm right in supposing Barton and Harber to have been but
two ventures out of many, two arrows out of a full quiver shot in
the dark at the bull's-eye of fortune. And, by heaven, it was
splendid shooting ... even if none of the other arrows scored!
Harber tells me he was ripe for the thing without any encouragement
to speak of. Tawnleytown was dull plodding for hot youth.
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