"Tell me about it," urged Morrell, settling back, and again motioning for fresh drinks.
Sansome, whose soul was ripe for sympathy, needed little more urging. He poured out his tale, sometimes rushingly and passionately, again, as his submerged but still conventional self-consciousness straggled to the surface, with shamefaced bravado. "By Gad!" he finished. "You know, I feel like a raw schoolboy, talkin' like this!"
Morrell leaned forward, his reserve of manner laid aside, his whole being radiating sympathetic charm.
"My dear chap, don't," he begged, laying his hand on Sansome's forearm. "A genuine passion is the most glorious thing on earth even in callow youth! But when we old men of the world—" The pause was eloquent. "She's a headstrong filly," he went on in a more matter-of-fact tone, after a moment, "takes a bit of handling. You'll pardon me, old chap, if I suggest that you've gone about things a bit wrong."
"How is that?" asked Sansome. Under the influence of drinks, confession, and sympathy, he was in a glow of fellow-feeling.
"Believe me, I know women and horses! You've ridden this one too much on the snaffle. Try the curb. That high-spirited sort takes a bit of handling. They like to feel themselves dominated. You've been too gentle, too refined. She's gentle and refined for two. What she wants is the brute—'Rape of the Sabines' principle. Savage her a bit, and she'll come to heel like a dog. Not at once, perhaps. Give her a week."
"That's all very well," objected Sansome, whose eyes were shining, "but how about that week? She'll run to that beast of a husband with her story—"
"And be sorry for it afterward—"
"Too late."
Morrell appeared to think.