Chapter X (3)

"I am sending them back, Mr. Knox, with my resignation. I should
never have taken them. But somehow you made me feel that I was a
sort of fairy princess, and that jade beads belonged to me, and
everything beautiful, and that some day life would bring them. But
life isn't that, and you knew it and I didn't. Life is just warm
human happiness, and a home, and work for those we love. And so,
after all, I am going to marry Tommy. And Nannie is going to marry
Dick. In a way it is a happy ending, and in a way it isn't, because
I've grown away from the kind of life I must live with Tommy, and I
am afraid that in some ways I am not fitted for it. But Tommy says
that I am silly to be afraid. And in the future I am going to trust
Tommy."

And so Mary went out of Kingdon Knox's life. And on Christmas Day at the head of a great table, with servants to the right of him and servants to the left, he carved a mammoth turkey; and there was silver shining, and glass sparkling and lovely women smiling, all in honor of the merry season.

But Kingdon Knox was not merry as he thought of the jade beads and of Mary's empty desk.

BEGGARS ON HORSEBACK