"I ask you to drink to the happiness of the loveliest woman in creation."

THE ORCHID

BY

ROBERT GRANT

ILLUSTRATED BY
ALONZO KIMBALL

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
NEW YORK:::::::::::::::1905

Copyright, 1905, by
Charles Scribner's Sons
——
Published, April, 1905

TROW DIRECTORY
PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING COMPANY
NEW YORK

ILLUSTRATIONS

THE ORCHID

I

It was generally recognized that Lydia Arnold's perceptions were quicker than those of most other people. She was alert in grasping the significance of what was said to her; her face clearly revealed this. She had the habit of deliberating just an instant before responding, which marked her thought; and when she spoke, her words had a succinct definiteness of their own. The quality of her voice arrested attention. The intonation was finished yet dry: finished in that it was well modulated; dry in that it was void of enthusiasm.

Yet Lydia was far from a grave person. She laughed readily and freely, but in a minor key, which was only in keeping with her other attributes of fastidiousness. Her mental acuteness and conversational poise were accounted for at Westfield—the town within the limits of which dwelt the colony of which she was a member—by the tradition that she had read everything, or, more accurately, that she had been permitted to read everything while still a school-girl.

Her mother, a beautiful, nervous invalid—one of those mysterious persons whose peculiarities are pigeon-holed in the memories of their immediate families—had died in Lydia's infancy. Her amiable but self-indulgent father had been too easy-going or too obtuse to follow the details of her home-training. He had taken refuge from qualms or perplexities by providing a governess, a well-equipped, matronly foreigner, from whom she acquired a correct French accent and composed deportment, both of which were now marks of distinction. Mlle. Demorest would have been the last woman to permit a jeune fille to browse unreservedly in a collection of miscellaneous French novels. But Lydia saw no reason why she should inform her preceptress that, having entered her father's library in search of "Ivanhoe" and the "Dutch Republic," she had gone there later to peruse the works of Flaubert, Octave Feuillet, and Guy de Maupassant. Why, indeed? For, to begin with, was she not an American girl, and free to do as she chose? And then again the evolution was gradual; she had reached this stage of culture by degrees. She read everything which the library contained—poetry, history, philosophy, fiction—and having exhausted these resources, she turned her attention outside, and became an omnivorous devourer of current literature.

Before her "coming-out" party she was familiar with all the "up-to-date" books, and had opinions on many problems, sexual and otherwise, though be it said she was an eminently proper young person in her language and behavior, and her knowingness, so far as appeared, was merely intellectual. Early in the day her father's scrutiny was forever dazzled by the assuring discovery that she was immersed in Scott. Mr. Arnold had been told by some of his contemporaries that the rising generation did not read Sir Walter, a heresy so damnable that when he found his daughter pale with interest over the sorrows of the "Bride of Lammermoor," he jumped to the conclusion that her literary taste was conservative, and gave no more thought to this feature of her education. Presently he did what he considered the essentially paternal thing—introduced her to the social world through the medium of a magnificent ball, which taxed his income though he had been preparing for it for a year or two. As one of a bevy of pretty, innocent-looking maidens in white tulle, Lydia attracted favorable comment from the outset by her piquant expression and stylish figure. But shortly after the close of her first season she was driven into retirement by her father's death, and when next she appeared on the horizon, sixteen months later, it was as a spirited follower of the hounds belonging to the Westfield Hunt Club.

On the crisp autumn day when this story opens, the members of that energetic body were eagerly discussing the interesting proposition whether or not Miss Lydia Arnold was going to accept Herbert Maxwell as a husband. This was the universal query, and the point had been agitated for the past six weeks with increasing curiosity. The hunting season was now nearing its close, and the lover was still setting a tremendous pace, but none of the closest feminine friends of the young woman in question appeared to have inside information. Even her bosom friend, Mrs. Walter Cole, as she joined the meet that morning, could only say in answer to inquiries that Lydia was mum as an oyster.

"I suppose the reflection that the offspring might resemble Grandma Maxwell tends to counteract the glamour of the four millions," remarked one of the group, Gerald Marcy, a middle-aged bachelor with a partiality for cynical sallies—also an ex-master of the hounds and one of the veterans of the colony. He was mounted on a solid roan hunter slightly but becomingly grizzled like himself. Thereupon he gave a twist to his mustache, as he was apt to do after uttering what he thought was a good thing. Most of the Westfield Hunt Club were clean-shaven young men who regarded a mustache as a hirsute superfluity. The nucleus of the club had been formed twenty years previous—in the late seventies—at which time it was the fashion to wear hair on the face, but of the small band of original members some had grown too stout or too shaky to hunt, most had families which forbade them to run the risk of breaking their necks, and others were dead.

Mrs. Cole's reply was uttered so that only Marcy heard it. Perhaps she feared to shock the smooth-shaven younger men, for, though she prided herself on her complete sophistication in regard to the world and its ways, one evidence of it was that she suited her conversation to the person with whom she was talking. There are points of view which a young matron can discuss with a middle-aged bachelor which might embarrass or be misinterpreted by less experienced males. So she caused her pony to bound a little apart before she said to Marcy, who followed her:

"I doubt very much if children of her own are included in Lydia's scheme of life."

Mrs. Cole was a bright-eyed, vivacious woman, who talked fast and cleverly. She was fond of making paradoxical remarks, and of defending her theses stoutly. She glanced sideways at her companion to observe the effect of this animadversion, then, bending, patted the neck of her palfrey caressingly. She was herself the mother of two chubby infants, and, out of deference to domestic claims, she no longer followed the hounds, but simply took a morning spin to the meets on a safe hack.

Marcy smiled appreciatively. As a man of the world he felt bound to do this, yet as a man of the world he felt shocked at the hypothesis. Race suicide was in his eyes a cardinal sin compared with which youthful indiscretions resulting from hot blood appeared trifling and normal. Besides, it was deliberate rebellion against the vested rights of man. This latter consideration gave the cue to his slightly dogged answer.

"I rather think that Herbert Maxwell would have something to say about that."

Mrs. Cole surveyed him archly, meditating a convincing retort, when suddenly a new group of riders appeared over the crest of an intervening hill. "Here they are!" she cried with a gusto which proclaimed that the opportunity for subtle confabulation on the point at issue was at an end.

The newcomers, all ardent hunting spirits—Mr. and Mrs. Andrew Cunningham, Miss Peggy Blake, Miss Lydia Arnold, Guy Perry and Herbert Maxwell—came speeding forward at a brisk gallop. Mrs. Cunningham—May Cunningham—was a short, dumpy woman, amiable and popular, but hard featured, as though she had burned the candle in social comings and goings in her youth, which indeed was the case. But since her marriage she had by way of settling down fixed her energies on cross-country riding, and was familiarly known as the mother of the hunt. She had an excellent seat. She and her husband, a burly sportsman whose ruling passion was to reduce his weight below two hundred pounds, and whose predilection for gaudy effects in waistcoats and stocks always pushed the prevailing fashion hard, were prime movers in the Westfield set. They had no children, and, as Mrs. Cole once said, it sometimes seemed as though the hounds took the place of them.

Miss Peggy Blake was a breezy Amazon, comely, long-limbed and enthusiastic, of many adjectives but simple soul, whose hair was apt to tumble down at inopportune moments, but who stuck at nothing which promised fresh physical exhilaration. Guy Perry, a young broker who had made a fortune in copper stocks, was one of her devoted swains. But dashingly as she rode, her carriage lacked Lydia Arnold's distinction and witchery. Indeed, that slight, dainty young person seemed a part of the animal, so gracefully and jauntily did she follow the movements of her rangy, spirited thoroughbred. When Gerald Marcy exclaimed fervently, "By Jove, but she rides well!" no one of the awaiting group was doubtful as to whom he meant.

Keeping as close to his Dulcinea as he could, but not quite abreast, came Herbert Maxwell, a rather lumbering equestrian. Fashion had led him, the previous season, as a young man with great possessions, to follow the hounds, but sedately, as became a somewhat sober novice. Love now spurred him to take the highest stone walls, and for the purpose he had bought a couple of famous hunters. He had long ago dismissed both fear and caution, and had eyes only for the nape of Miss Arnold's neck as they sped over hill and dale. Twice in the last six weeks he had come a cropper, as the phrase is, and been cut up a bit, but he still rode valiantly, bent on running the risk of a final tumble which would break not his ribs but his heart. In every-day life he appeared large and above the average height, with reddish-brown hair and eyebrows and a somewhat grave countenance—rather a nondescript young man, but entirely unobjectionable; the sort of personality which, as Lydia's friends were saying, a clever woman could mould into a solid if not ornamental social pillar.

For Herbert Maxwell was a new man. That is, the parents of the members of the Westfield Hunt Club remembered his father as a dealer in furniture, selling goods in his own store, a red-visaged round-faced, stubby looking citizen with a huge standing collar gaping at the front. Though he had grown rich in the process, settled in the fashionable quarter of the city and sent his boy to college in order to make desirable friends and get a good education, it could not be denied that he smelt of varnish metaphorically if not actually, and that Herbert was, so to speak, on the defensive from a social point of view. Everybody's eye was on him to see that he did not make some "break," and inasmuch as he was commonly, if patronizingly, spoken of as "a very decent sort of chap," it may be taken for granted that he had managed to escape serious criticism. His sober manner was partly to be accounted for by his determination to keep himself well in hand, which had been formed ten years previous, during his Freshman year, when one of his classmates, to the manner born, informed him in a moment of frankness that he was too loud-mouthed for success.

This had been the turning-point in his career; he had been toning down ever since; he had been cultivating reserve, checking all temptations toward extravagance of speech, deportment or dress, and, in short, had become convincingly repressed—that is, up to the hour of his infatuation for Lydia Arnold. Since then he had let himself go, yet not indecorously, and with due regard to the proprieties. All the world loves a lover, and to the Westfield Hunt Club Herbert Maxwell's kicking over the bars of colorless conventionality appeared both pardonable and refreshing, especially as it was recognized that the manifestations of his ardor, though unmistakable, had not been lacking in taste. The sternest censors of society had not the heart to sneer at the possessor of four millions because the entertainments which he gave in his lady love's honor were more sumptuous than the occasion demanded, and that in his solicitude to keep up with her on the hunting field he was an easy victim to the horse-dealers. Before the bar of nice judgment it was tacitly admitted that he appeared to better advantage than if he had ambled after his goddess with the lacklustre indifference which some of his betters were apt to affect. It takes one to the manner born to be listless in love and yet prevail; and so it was that Maxwell's reversion to breakneck manners had given a pleasant thrill to this fastidious colony.

Gay greetings and felicitations on the beauty of the day for hunting purposes were exchanged between the new-comers and their friends. The men in their red coats had a word of gallantry or chaff for every woman. New equestrians appeared approaching from diverse directions, while suddenly from the kennels a few rods distant issued a barking, snuffing pack of eager hounds, conducted by Kenneth Post, the master, whose expansive high white stock and shining black leather boots proclaimed that he took his functions seriously. This was a red-letter day for him, as he had invited the hunt to breakfast with him at the club-house after the run.

Lydia, on her arrival, had guided her thoroughbred to the other side of Mrs. Cole so deftly that her admirer was shut out from immediate pursuit. At a glance from her the two women's heads bent close together in scrutiny of some disarrangement in her riding-habit.

"Fanny," she whispered, "I've done it."

"Lydia! When did it happen?"

"Last evening. I've given him permission to announce it at the breakfast."

"My dear, I'm just thrilled. You've kept us all guessing."

"I've heard that the betting was even," answered Lydia with dry complacency. The intimation that she had kept the world in the dark was evidently agreeable. "I wished you to know first of all."

"That was lovely of you. And how clever to escape the bore of writing all those hateful notes! That was just like you, Lydia."

"I know a girl who wrote two hundred, and the day they were ready to be sent out changed her mind. I don't wish to run the risk. Here comes Mr. Marcy."

Fannie Cole gave her hand an ecstatic squeeze and they lifted their heads to meet the common enemy, man. It was time to start, and he was solicitous lest something were wrong with Miss Arnold's saddle girths.

"Beauty in distress?" he murmured with a tug at his mustache. Marcy had his commonplace saws, like most of us.

Mrs. Cole was opening her mouth to reassure him on that score when she was forestalled by Lydia.

"That's a question, Mr. Marcy, which can be more easily answered a year or two hence."

Marcy bowed low in his saddle. "At your pleasure, of course. I did not come to pry." At his best Marcy had quick perceptions and could put two and two together. He was assisted to the divination that something was in the wind by catching sight at the moment of Herbert Maxwell's countenance. That worthy had been blocked in his progress by pretty Mrs. Baxter, who, having resented his attempt to squeeze past her by the following remark, had barred his way with her horse's flank.

"We all know where you are heading, Mr. Maxwell, but as a punishment for endeavoring to shove me aside you must pay toll by talking to me for a little."

The culprit had started and stared like one awakened in his sleep, and stammered his apologies to his laughing tormentor. But while she kept him at bay, his eyes could not help straying beyond her toward the woman of his heart, and it was their peculiar expression which drew from Marcy the remark which he referred to later as an inspiration.

"It's not exactly pertinent to the subject, Miss Arnold, but Herbert Maxwell has the look this morning of having seen the Holy Grail."

Lydia calmly turned her graceful head in the direction indicated, then facing her interrogator, said oracularly after a pause: "The wisest men are liable to see false visions. But provided they are happy, does it really matter, Mr. Marcy?"

Whereupon, without waiting for a response to this Delphic utterance, she tapped her thoroughbred with her hunting crop and cantered forward to take her place in the van of those about to follow the hounds.

II

Mrs. Walter Cole was glad to find herself alone after the hounds were off. Without waiting to be joined by any women, who, like herself, had come to see the start and intended to jog on the flank, cut corners and so be in at the finish, she put her hack at a brisk canter in the direction of a neighboring copse, seeking a bridle-path through the woods which would bring her out not far from the club-house after a pleasant circuit. She was indeed thrilled, and, inasmuch as she must remain tongue-tied, she could not bear the society of her sex, and sought solitude and reverie. And so Lydia had done it. Intimate as they were, she had been kept guessing like the rest, and up to the moment of the disclosure of the absorbing confidence she had never been able to feel sure whether Lydia would or not. Lydia married! And if so? She would have been sure to marry some day; and to marry an entirely reputable and presentable man with four millions was, after all, an eminently normal proceeding.

Yet somehow it was one thing to think of her as liable to marry, another to recognize that she was actually engaged. It was the concrete reality of Lydia Arnold married and settled which set Mrs. Cole's nimble brain spinning with speculative, sympathetic interest as the dry autumn leaves cracked under the hoofs of her walking horse, to which she had given a loose rein. Lydia had such highly evolved ideas of her own; and how would they accord with the connubial relation? Not that she knew these ideas in specific detail, for Lydia had never hinted at a system; but from time to time in the relaxations of spirit intimacy there had been droppings—flashes—innuendoes, which had set the world in a new light, blazed the path as it were for a new feminine philosophy, and which to a clever woman like herself, fastened securely by domestic ties to the existing order of things, were alike entertaining and suggestive. Mrs. Cole drew a deep breath, as once more recurred to her sundry remarks which had provided her already that morning with material for causing no less experienced a person than Mr. Gerald Marcy to prick up his ears. She and her husband had set up housekeeping on a humble scale—almost poverty from the Westfield point of view—and she remembered the contemplative silence more eloquent than words when, three years previous, hungry for enthusiasm, she had taken Lydia into the nursery to admire her first-born. All her other unmarried friends had gone into ecstasies over baby, as became true daughters of Eve. Lydia, after long scrutiny, had simply said:

"Well, dear, I suppose you think it's worth while."

Thus wondering how Lydia would deal with the problems of matrimony, and almost bursting with her secret, Mrs. Cole walked her horse until the novelty of the revelation had worn off a little. When she left the covert at a point suggested by the baying of the dogs, she caught a glimpse of the hunt on the opposite side of the horizon to that where it had disappeared from view. Assuming that the finish was likely to occur in the meadow lands in the rear of the club-house, she proceeded to gallop briskly across the intervening valley in the hope of anticipating the hounds. Time, however, had slipped away faster than she supposed. At all events, when she was still some little distance from the field which was her destination she beheld the hounds scampering down the slope from the woodlands beyond. A moment later the air resounded with their yelpings as they attacked the raw meat provided as a reward for the deceit imposed on them by the anise-seed scent. Close on their heels came the Master and the leading spirits of the chase, and by the time Mrs. Cole arrived the entire hunt had put in an appearance or been accounted for, and was proceeding leisurely toward the club, gayly comparing notes on the incidents of the run. There had been amusing casualties. Douglas Hale's horse, having failed to clear a ditch, had tossed its ponderous rider over its head—happily without serious consequences—and in the act of floundering out had planted a shower of mud on the person of Guy Perry, so that the ordinarily spruce young broker was a sight to behold.

The Westfield Hunt Club was one of a number of social colonies in the eastern section of the country which in the course of the last twenty-five years have come into being and flourished. Three principal causes have contributed to their evolution: the increase in wealth and in the number of people with comfortable means, the growing partiality for outdoor athletic sports, and the tendency on the part of those who could afford two homes to escape the stuffy air of the cities during as many months as possible, and on the part of young couples with only one home to set up their household gods in the country. Our ancestors of consideration were apt to hug the cities and towns. Their summer excursions to the seaside rarely began before July, and fathers of families preferred to be safe at home before the brewing of the equinoxial storm. But the towering bricks and mortar and increasing pressure of urban life have little by little prolonged the season of emancipation in the fresh air, and spacious modern villas, with many bath-rooms and all the modern improvements, have supplanted the primitive cottages of the former generation, just as the rank fields of gay butter-cups and daisies have given place to velvety lawns, extensive stables, and terraced Italian gardens.

The Westfield Hunt Club was primarily a sporting colony—that is, outdoor sport was its ruling passion. Cross-country riding had been its first love, at a time when the free-born farmers of the neighborhood looked askance at the introduction of what they considered dudish British innovations. Yet it promptly offered hospitality to the rising interest in sports of every kind, and the devotees of tennis, polo and golf found there ample accommodation for the pursuit of their favorite pastimes.

At the date of our narrative the interest in tennis was at a minimum; polo, always a sport in which none but the prosperous few can afford to shine, had only a small following; but golf was at the height of its fashionable ascendency. Everybody was playing golf, not only the young and supple, the middle-aged and persevering, but every man however clumsy and every woman however feeble or gawky who felt constrained to follow the latest social fad as a law of his or her being. Every links in the country was crowded with agitated followers of the royal and ancient game, who bought clubs galore in the constant hope of acquiring distance and escaping bunkers, and who were alternately pitied and bullied by the attendant army of caddies, sons of the small farmers whose views regarding British innovations had been substantially modified by the accompanying shower of American quarters and dimes.

Indeed, it may be said that the attitude of the country-side regarding all the doings of the colony had undergone a gradual but complete change. This was due to the largess and social tact of the new-comers. To begin with, they were eager to pay roundly for the privilege of trampling down crops and riding through fences. Having thus put matters on a liberal pecuniary basis, they endeavored to translate grim forbearance for business reasons into a more genial frame of mind by horse shows with popular features, and country fairs where fat prizes for large vegetables and free dinners bore testimony to the good-will of the promoters. A ball at which the pink-coated male members of the club danced with the farmers' wives and daughters, and Mrs. Andrew Cunningham, with a corps of fair assistants, stood up with the country swains while they cut pigeon-wings in utter gravity, was an annual sop to local sensibilities and a bid for popular regard. Little by little the neighborhood had thawed. Surely the new-comers must be good fellows, if Westfield's tax receipts were growing in volume without demur, and there was constantly increasing employment for the people not only on the public roads, but in carpentry, plumbing, and all sorts of jobs on the new places, besides a splendid market for their sheep and chickens and garden produce. From Westfield's standpoint the ways of some of these individuals with "money to burn" were puzzling, but if grown-up folk could find amusement in chasing a little white ball across country, the common sense of Westfield could afford to be indulgent under existing circumstances.

The quarters to which the hunting party now repaired in gay spirits was, as its appearance indicated, a farm-house of ancient aspect, which had been altered over to begin with, and been amplified later to suit the greater requirements of the club. The rambling effect of the low-studded rooms had been enhanced by sundry wings and annexes, the result of which was far from convincing architecturally, but which suggested a quaint cosiness very satisfying and precious to the original members. Progress, reform, innovation—call it what you will—was already rife in the colony itself, a case, it would seem, of refining gold or painting the lily. One had only to observe the more elaborate character of the new houses to be convinced of this. The pioneers had been content to leave the original structures standing, and to do them over with new plumbing and new wall-papers. Then it occurred to some one richer than his fellows, or whose wife remembered the scriptural admonition against putting new wine into old bottles, to pull down an ancient farm-house and replace it with a comely modern villa. The villa was simple and an ornament to the landscape, and though the wiseacres shook their heads and described it as an entering wedge, the general consensus of the colony declared it an improvement. Others followed suit, and within two years there was a dozen of these pleasant-looking homes in the vicinity.

But latterly a new tendency had manifested itself. Three sportsmen of large possessions, who had decided to spend most of the year in the country, had erected establishments on an imposing scale, very spacious, very stately, with extensive stables and all the appurtenances befitting a magnificent country-seat. As the owners were building simultaneously, there had naturally been some rivalry to produce the most imposing result. The effect of these splendors was already perceptible. Others with large possessions were talking of invading Westfield, land was rising in value, and it cost the colony more to entertain. Most terrible of all to the pioneers, there was unconcealed whispering that the club-house must come down and be replaced by a convenient modern structure; that more commodious stables were needed; that the golf links should be materially lengthened, and that both the annual dues and the membership must be increased to help provide for these improvements. As a consequence most of the old members were irate on the subject, and Gerald Marcy was quoted as having said that to do away with the original quarters would be an act of sacrilege.

"Are not the rafters sacred from time-honored association?" he had inquired in a voice trembling with emotion.

"Principally with champagne," had been Guy Perry's comment on this fervent apostrophe. Youth is fickle and partial to change. Guy voiced the sentiment of the younger element in craving modern comfort and conveniences, which could be obtained by demolishing the old rattle-trap, as the less conservative styled it, and putting up a clean, commodious, attractive-looking club-house. Guy himself had given out that his firm was ready to underwrite the bonds necessary to finance all the proposed changes. Thus it will be seen that at this period social conditions at Westfield were in a condition of ferment and change, although the colony was still youthful. Yet differences of opinion were merged on this particular morning in the enjoyment of sport and the crisp autumn weather. The returning members of the hunt found at the club-house some of the golf players of both sexes, who had been invited by the master of the hounds to join them at breakfast, and it was not long before the company was seated at table.

Everyone was hungry, and everyone seemed in good spirits. Conversation flowed spontaneously, or, in other words, everyone seemed to be talking at once. The host, Kenneth Post, finding himself free for a moment from all responsibilities save to see that the waiters did their duty, inasmuch as the woman on either side of him was exchanging voluble pleasantries with someone else, cast a contented glance around the mahogany. Personal badinage, as he well knew, was the current coin of his set. The occasion on which it was absent or flagged was regarded as dull. Subjects, ideas, theories bored his companions—especially the women—as a social pastime. What they liked was to talk about people, to gossip of one another's affairs or failings when separated, to discharge at one another keen but good-humored chaff when they met. Naturally the host was gratified by the universal chatter, for obviously his friends were enjoying themselves. Nevertheless there seemed to be something in the air not to be explained by the exhilaration resulting from the run or by cocktails before luncheon. As he mused, his eyes fell on Herbert Maxwell and he wondered. That faithful but solid equestrian was commonly reticent and rather inert in speech, but now, with face aglow, he was bandying words with Miss Peggy Blake and another young woman at the same time. Post remembered that he had seen him take three drinks at the bar, which for him was an innovation. The Master felt knowing, and instinctively his eyes sought the countenance of Miss Arnold. It was demure and furnished no clue to her admirer's mood, unless a faint smile which suggested momentary content was to be regarded as an indication.

While Kenneth Post was thus observing his guests he was recalled to more active duties by Mrs. Andrew Cunningham, who, in her capacity of mother of the hunt, had been placed at his right hand. Having finished her soft-shell crab and emptied her quiver of timely shafts upon the young man at her other elbow, she had turned to her host for a familiar chat on the topic at that time nearest her heart.

"I hope you're on our side, Mr. Post—that you are opposed to the new order of things which would drive every one except millionaires out of Westfield? Tell me that you intend to vote against pulling down this dear old sanctuary. It's a rookery, if you like, but that's its charm. Will anything they build take the place of it in our affections?"

"We've had lots of good times here, of course, and I'm as fond of the old place as anyone, but—the fact is, Mrs. Cunningham, I'm in a difficult position. The younger men count on me in a way; it was they who chose me master, and in a sense I'm their representative; so——"

He paused, and allowed the ellipsis to convey an intimation of what he might be driven to by the rising generation, to which he was more nearly allied by age than to the older faction.

Mrs. Cunningham looked up in his face in doughty expostulation. Her round cheeks reminded him of ruddy but slightly withered crab-apples. "The time has come for Andrew and me to pull up stakes, I fear. The life here'll be spoiled. Everything is going up in price—land, servants, marketing, horses, assessments."

"That's the case everywhere, isn't it?" Kenneth was an easy-going fellow, and preferred smiling acquiescence, but when taken squarely to task he had the courage of his convictions. "The fellows wish more comforts and facilities. There are next to no bathing accommodations at present, and everything is cramped, and—and really it's so, if one looks dispassionately—fusty."

"I adore the fustiness."

"Wait until you see the improvements. Mark my words, six months after they are finished nothing would induce you to return to the old order of things. We're sure of the money; the loan has been underwritten by a syndicate."

Mrs. Cunningham groaned. "Exactly. So has everything in Westfield, to judge by appearances. The palaces erected by the Douglas Hales, the Marburys, and Mr. Gordon Wallace have given the death-blow to simple ways, and we shall soon be in the grip of a plutocracy. The original band of gentlemen farmers who came here to get close to nature and to one another are undone, have become back numbers, and"—she lowered her voice to suit the exigencies—"in case Lydia Arnold accepts Herbert Maxwell, she will not rest until she has something more imposing and gorgeous than anything yet."

Kenneth eagerly took advantage of the opportunity to divert the emphasis to that ever-interesting speculation.

"Have you any light to throw on the burning problem?" he asked.

The mother of the hunt shook her head. "Mrs. Cole said to me only yesterday, 'I've tried to make up my mind for her by putting myself in her place and endeavoring to decide what conclusion I, with her characteristics, would come to, and I find myself still wobbling, because she's Lydia, and he's what he is, which would be eminently desirable for some women, but——'"

A sudden hush around the table prevented the conclusion of this philosophic utterance. The sportsman of whom she was speaking had risen with a brimming glass of champagne in one hand and was accosting the master of the hounds. A general thrill of expectancy succeeded the hush. What was he going to say? Speeches were not altogether unknown at Westfield hunt breakfasts, but they were not apt to be so impromptu, nor the contribution of such a negative soul as Herbert Maxwell. Gerald Marcy, sitting next to Mrs. Cole, was prompted to repeat his observation of the morning. "I was right," he whispered. "He has seen the Holy Grail."

"Wait—just wait," she answered tensely. She knew what was going to happen, and as her dark eyes vibrated deftly from Herbert's face to Lydia's and back again, she longed for two pairs that she might not for an instant lose the expression on either. Meanwhile the host had rapped on the table and was saying encouragingly:

"Our friend Mr. Herbert Maxwell desires to make a few remarks."

"Hear—hear!" cried Douglas Hale raucously. His fall had obviously dulled the nicety of his instincts, for everyone else was too curious to utter a word—too rapt to invade the interesting silence.

Maxwell had worn the air of a demi-god when he rose. A wave of self-consciousness doubtless obliterated the introductory phrases which he had learned by heart, for after a moment's painful silence he suddenly blurted out:

"I'm the happiest man in the world, and I want you all to know it."

Here was the kernel of the whole matter. What better could he have said? What more was there left to say? The riddle was solved, and the suspense which had hung over Westfield like a cloud for many months was dissolved in a rainbow of romance. There was no need of names; everybody understood, and a shout of delight followed. Every woman in the room shrieked her congratulations to the bride-to-be, and those nearest her got possession of her person. Miss Peggy Blake was the nearest and hence the first.

"You dear thing! It's just splendid; the most intensely exciting thing which ever happened!" she cried, throwing her arms around Lydia's neck. In the embrace her hair, which had become loose during the run, fell about her ears, and Guy Perry had to get down on his knees to find the gilt hair-pins. There was a babel of superlatives, and delirious feminine laughter; the men wrung the happy lover's hands or patted him on the back.

When the turmoil subsided Maxwell was still standing. Like St. Michael over the prostrate dragon, he had planted his feet securely for once in his life on the necks of the serpents Diffidence and Repression. He put out his hand to invite silence.

"I ask you to drink to the happiness of the loveliest woman in creation. When a man worships a woman as I do her, and she has done him the honor to plight him her troth, why shouldn't he bear witness to his love and blazon her charms and virtues to the stars? God knows I'm going to make her happy, if I can! To the happiness of my future wife, Miss Lydia Arnold!"

"All up!" cried the master, and as the company rose under the spell of love's fervid invocation, he added authoritatively, "No heel taps!"

As they drained their glasses and were in the act of sitting down, Guy Perry conveyed the cordial sentiment of all present toward the proposer of the toast and lover-elect by beginning to troll,

For he's a jolly good fellow—

For he's a jolly good fellow.

Under cover of the swelling song Mrs. Walter Cole, fluttering in her seat, and with her eyes fastened on Lydia's countenance, felt the need of taking Gerald Marcy into her confidence.

"I just wonder what she thinks of it. His letting himself go like that is rather nice; but it isn't at all in her style. If she is truly in love with him, it doesn't matter. But there she sits with that inscrutable smile, perfectly serene, but not in the least worked up, apparently. Our embraces didn't even ruffle her hair."

"He has been repressing himself—been on his good behavior for years, poor fellow," murmured Marcy.

"I tell you I like his calling her the loveliest woman in creation and thinking it. Such guileless fervor is much too rare nowadays. But what effect will it have on Lydia, who knows she isn't? That is what is troubling me. Unless she is deeply smitten, won't it bore her?"

The question was but the echo of her spirit's wonder; she did not expect a categorical response. Whatever good thing Gerald Marcy was meditating in reply was nipped in the bud by an appeal to him for "Aunt Dinah's Quilting Party" as a continuation of the outburst of song. He felt obliged to comply, and yet was nothing loth, as it was one of the most popular in his repertory, and was adapted to his sweet if somewhat spavined tenor voice.

In the skies the bright stars glittered,

On the bank the pale moon shone,

And 'twas from Aunt Dinah's quilting party

I was seeing Nellie home.

So he sang with melodious precision, accompanying his performance with that slight exaggeration of chivalric manner which distinguished the rendering of his ditties. The words just suited the sensibilities of the company, combining feeling with banter, and in full-voiced unison they caught up the refrain:

I was seeing Nellie ho-o-me—

I was seeing Nellie ho-o-me,

And 'twas from Aunt Dinah's quilting party

I was seeing Nellie home.

Laughing feminine eyes shot merry glances in the direction of Lydia, and the red-coated sportsmen lifted their glasses in grandiloquent apostrophe of the affianced pair. Andrew Cunningham, resplendent in a canary-colored waistcoat with fine red bars, was heard to remark confidentially, after ordering another whiskey and soda, that the festivities which were certain to follow in the wake of this engagement would add five pounds to his weight, which it had taken him two months of Spartan abstemiousness to reduce three.

Erect and sportsmanlike, Gerald continued, after an impressive sweep of his hand to promote silence:

On my arm her light hand rested,

Rested light as o-o-cean's foam,

And 'twas from Aunt Dinah's quilting party

I was seeing Nellie home.

It was a red-letter day not only for the master of the hounds but for Westfield's entire colony. Conjecture was at an end; the love-god had triumphed; the announcement was a fitting wind-up to the exhilarating hunting season. Yet amid the general congratulation and optimism some philosophic souls like Mrs. Walter Cole did not forbear to wonder what was to be the sequel.

III

Precise consideration by Lydia of her feelings for her betrothed—and presently her husband, as they were married in the following January—were rendered superfluous for the time being by the worship which he lavished upon her. There were so many other things to think of: first her engagement ring, which called forth ejaculations of envious admiration from her contemporaries; then her trousseau, the costumes of her bridesmaids, the details of the ceremony and the wedding breakfast, and the important question whether the honeymoon was to be spent in Europe. There was never any doubt as to this in Lydia's mind. After deliberation she had decided on a winter passage by the Mediterranean route to Nice and Cannes, followed by a summer in the Tyrol and Switzerland, with a fortnight in Paris to repair the ravages in her wardrobe made by changing fashion. It must not be understood that Maxwell demurred to this attractive programme. He merely intimated that if he remained at home and demonstrated what he called his serious side, he would probably receive a nomination for the Legislature in the autumn; that the party managers had predicted as much; and that the favorable introduction into politics thus obtained might lead to Congress or a foreign mission, as he had the means to live up to either position worthily.

Lydia listened alertly. "I should like you to go as ambassador to Paris or London some day, of course, but to serve in the Legislature now would scarcely conduce to that, Herbert. I've set my heart on going abroad—I've never been but once, you know—and it's just the time to go when we are building our two houses. Where should we live if we stayed at home? The sensible plan is to store our presents, buy some tapestries and old furniture on the other side, and come back in time to get the autumn hunting at Westfield and inaugurate our two establishments."

This settled the matter. The only real uncertainty had been whether she did not prefer a trip around the world instead. But that would take too long. She was eager to figure as the mistress of the most stately modern mansion and the most consummate country house which money and architectural genius could erect. These two houses were perhaps the most engrossing of all among the many concerns which led her to postpone precise analysis of her feelings to a period of greater leisure. That is the exact quality of her love—whether it were eighteen carat or not, to adopt a simile suggested to her by her wedding-ring. That she loved Herbert sufficiently well to marry him was the essential point; and it seemed futile to play hide-and-seek with her own consciousness over the abstract proposition whether she could have loved someone else better, especially as there were so many immediately pressing matters to consider that both her physician and Herbert had warned her she was liable, if not prudent, to fall a victim to that lurking ailment, nervous prostration.

It was certainly no slight responsibility to select the lot in town which seemed to combine most advantages as the site for a residence. The matter of the country house was much simpler, for who could doubt that the ideal location was an expanse of undulating country, higher than the rest of the neighborhood, known as Norrey's Farm? These fifty acres, with woods appurtenant, were reputed to be out of the market unless to a single purchaser. Many a pioneer had picked out Norrey's Knoll as his choice, only to be thwarted by the owner with the assertion that he must buy the whole farm or could have none. Later would-be purchasers had recoiled before the price, which had kept not merely abreast but had galloped ahead of current valuations, until it had become a by-word in the colony that Farmer Norrey would bite his own nose off if he were not careful. But the shrewd rustic was more than vindicated by the upshot. Lydia, from the moment when she first seriously thought of Herbert Maxwell as a husband, had cast sheeps' eyes at this stately property, and within a short period after the engagement was announced the title deeds passed. Rumor declared that the canny grantor had divined that the opportunity of his life was at hand and had held out successfully for still higher figures. But, as everybody cheerfully remarked, ten thousand dollars more or less was but a flea-bite to Herbert Maxwell.

Then came the selection of the architects and divers inspections of plans for the two establishments, which, to the joy of the bridegroom, were interrupted by the wedding ceremony. They sailed, and their honeymoon was somewhat of a social parade. Special quarters—the most expensive and exclusive to be had—were engaged for them in advance on steamships and in railroad trains, in hotels and wherever they appeared. Maxwell's manifest tender purpose was to gratify his bride's slightest whim, and in regard to the choice of the objects on which his ready money was to be lavished he avoided taking the initiative except when an occasional mania seized him to buy her costly gems on the sly. Otherwise he danced attendance on her taste, which was discriminating and perspicuous. Lydia yearned for distinction, not extravagance; for superlative effects, not garishness. Her eye was on the lookout in regard to all the affairs of life, from food to the manifestations of art, for the note which accurately expressed elegant and fastidious comfort and gave the rebuff to every-day results or the antics of vulgarity.

Consequently the wedding trip after the first surprises was but a change of scene. There were still too many absorptions for retrospective thought and nice balancing of soul accounts. At Nice and Cannes they found themselves in a vortex of small gayeties. While travelling, Lydia was on the alert to pick up old tapestries, porcelain, and other works of art; in Paris, shopping and the dressmakers left no time for anything but a daily lesson to put the finishing touch to her French. She had said to herself that she would draw a trial balance of her precise emotions when she was at rest on the steamer—for Lydia by instinct was a methodical person; but a batch of letters reciting complications in regard to the last details on the new houses was a fresh distraction, and the society of several engaging men on the ship another. Nevertheless the thought that she was nearing home struck her fancy favorably, and on the evening before they landed she eluded everybody else to seize her husband's arm for a promenade on deck. There was elasticity in her step as she said, "Won't it be fun to be at Westfield again, Herbert? I long for a good run with the hounds, and I'm beginning to pine for the autumn colors and smells."

"Yes, indeed. And we shall be settled at our own fireside at last," he answered with a lover's animation.

The remark recalled bothersome considerations to Lydia's mind. She felt sure from the contents of the last packet of correspondence that the architect had failed to carry out her instructions in several instances.

"Settled?" she echoed. "If we are settled a year from now we may consider ourselves very fortunate."

Lydia's immediate plans met with interruption from an unexpected source. Before the hunting season had fairly begun it was privately whispered in Westfield circles that a stork would presently visit the new establishment on Norrey's Farm. Open inquiries from tactless interrogators, why the Maxwells did not follow the hounds, were answered by the explanation that the young people had so many matters to attend to in connection with their two houses that they had decided to postpone hunting to another year. Later it was known that they would pass the winter in the country, and not furnish the town house until spring. When the baby was actually born, in February, everyone knew that it was expected; but the advent of the infant in the flesh caused a flutter among Lydia's immediate feminine acquaintances. As soon as the mother was able to receive visitors, Mrs. Walter Cole came down from town to offer her warm felicitations and incidentally to satisfy the curiosity of those who took an interest. She had arranged to lunch after the interview with the Andrew Cunninghams, who lived all the year round at Westfield, and thither at the close of the visit to her intimate friend she repaired, replete with information. It happened to be Saturday, and the master of the house had brought down Gerald Marcy by an early train for a winter's afternoon tramp across country, so that the two women had only a few minutes of unreserved conversation.

"Well, she was just as one would have expected—Lydia all over," Mrs. Cole began with the intensity of a pent-up stream which has regained its freedom. "She looked sweet, and everything in her room and in the nursery was bewitching, as though she had been preparing for the event for years and doted on it. That's just like her, of course. She bemoaned her fate at losing the hunting season, and she has decided not to nurse the baby. As an experienced mother," continued Mrs. Cole contemplatively, "I felt bound to remind her that there are two sides to that question, and that I had nursed Toto and Jim not only because Walter insisted on it, but to give the children the benefit of the doubt as to any possible effect on character from being suckled by a stranger. But she had thought it all out, and had her arguments at her fingers' ends. She declared it a case of Anglo-Saxon prejudice, and that every Frenchwoman of position sends her babies to a foster-mother. Of course it is a bother, and frightfully confining, but my husband wouldn't hear of it, though half the mamas can't satisfy their babies anyway."

Mrs. Cunningham nodded understandingly. "I daresay it's just as well. And of course she regards the rest of us as old-fashioned. But tell me about the baby."

Mrs. Cole laughed. "You ought to have heard Lydia on the subject. She talks of it in the most impersonal way, as though it belonged to someone else or were a wedding present. I never cared much for babies before I was married, but could not endure anyone who wouldn't make flattering speeches about mine. Lydia's is a dear little thing as they go, and has a fascinating wardrobe already, and I think she is rather devoted to it in her secret soul, but one of the first things she said to me—before I could get in a single compliment—was, 'She's the living image of Grandma Maxwell, Fannie. She has her mouth and nose.' And the embarrassing part was that it's true. The moment Lydia called my attention to it I saw. Her eagle maternal eye had detected what the ordinary mother would have failed to perceive. But it's Grandma Maxwell to the life. 'Why evade the truth?' remarked Lydia after one of her deliberate pauses. 'I shall name her for her, and I can discern in advance that she will never be a social success.'"

"Poor little thing!" murmured Mrs. Cunningham. Such an anathema so early in life was certainly heart-rending.

Mrs. Cole put her head on one side like an arch bird by way of reflective protest. "It sounds dreadful, of course, but remember she's Lydia. What she will really do will be to metamorphose her, body and soul, so that by the time she is eighteen there will not be one trace of Maxwell visible to the naked eye. See if I'm not right," she said with the gusto of a brilliant inspiration which seemed to her a logical defence of her friend.

The arrival of the men interrupted the dialogue, but the general topic was presently resumed from another point of view. Not many minutes had elapsed after they sat down to luncheon before Gerald Marcy hazarded the observation that, prophecies and innuendoes to the contrary notwithstanding, events in the Maxwell household appeared to have followed the course of nature. Mrs. Cole, to whom this remark was directly addressed, ignored the sly impeachment of her abilities as a seer, and, having finished her piece of buttered toast, said blandly:

"I think Lydia is very happy."

"I felt sure she would be tamed," continued Marcy with a tug at his mustache. "I look to see her become a model of the domestic virtues."

"Don't be too sure that she is tamed, Gerald," said Mrs. Cunningham. "Lydia is Lydia." Perhaps the knowledge that she had been longing in vain for years for a child of her own gave the cue to this slightly brusk comment.

"Lydia will never be exactly like the rest of us; that's her peculiarity—virtue—what shall I call it?" interposed Mrs. Cole, looking round the table with a philosophic air. "The rest of us demur at conventions, but accept them in the end. She follows what she deems the truth. I don't say that she is always right or that she doesn't do queer things," she added by way of conservative qualification of her bubbling encomium.

"And how about Maxwell?" asked Andrew Cunningham, who had seemed temporarily lost in the contemplation of his lobster salad so long as any of that lusciously prepared viand remained on his plate. "Infatuated as ever, I suppose," he added, sitting back in his chair and exposing benignly his broad expanse of neckcloth and fancy check waistcoat.

"Yes, and he ought to be, surely. But Lydia has a rival in the daughter of the house," answered Mrs. Cole, reinspired by the inquiry. "He came in just as I was leaving, and is almost daft on the subject of the baby. If Lydia's ecstasy is somewhat below the normal, he more than makes up for the deficiency. There never was such a proud parent. He just 'chortled in his joy.' He discerns in her already all the graces and virtues, and would like to do something at once—he doesn't know exactly what—to bring them to the attention of an unappreciative world. If it were a boy, he could put his name down on the waiting lists at the clubs, but as she is only a girl, he must content himself with hanging over her crib for the present."

"Only a girl!" echoed Marcy. "Born with a golden spoon in her mouth, an heiress to all the virtues and graces, and predestined doubtless, like her mother, to rest her dainty foot upon the neck of man. Nevertheless, as I have already prophesied, I am inclined to think that the yoke—now a double yoke—will not bear too severely on Maxwell, though it may not yield him the bliss which we unregenerate bachelors are wont to associate with the ideal marital relation."

"Hear—hear!" exclaimed Andrew Cunningham. "You need some further liquid refreshment after that silver-tongued sophistry, Gerald.—Mary," he said to the maid, "pass the whiskey and soda to Mr. Marcy."

Mrs. Cole put her head on one side. "I have my doubts whether the ideal marital relation is a modern social possibility—the strictly ideal such as you bachelors mean," she added, feeling, doubtless, as the wife of a man to whom she had described herself in heart-to-heart talks with other women—not many, for she eschewed the subject ordinarily as sacred—as deeply attached, that this homily on wedlock needed a qualifying tag.

But May Cunningham was not in the mood to become a party to even so tempered an imputation on connubial happiness. "Speak for yourself, Fannie," she said sturdily. "Ideals or no ideals, Andrew and I trot in double harness better than any single animal of my acquaintance."

"Listen to the old woman, God bless her!" exclaimed the master of the house, raising his tumbler and smiling at his better-half with chivalrous expansiveness.

Mrs. Cole was a little nettled at Mrs. Cunningham's obtuseness—wilful obtuseness, it seemed to her. As though the subtle social problem suggested by her was to be solved by a reference to the homely affection of this amiable but limited couple! She sighed and murmured, "Everyone knows, my dear, that you and Andrew are as happy as the day is long. But I'm afraid that you don't understand exactly what I meant."

Mrs. Cunningham compressed her lips ominously. She felt that she understood perfectly well, and that it was simply another case of Fannie Cole's nonsense. But any retort she may have been meditating was averted by the timely and genial inspiration of her husband.

"One thing is certain," he said: "we all know that our Gerald is the ideal bachelor."

This assertion called forth cordial acquiescence from both the ladies, and turned the current of the conversation into a smoother channel. The subject of the remark bowed decorously.

"In this company I am free to admit that I sometimes sigh in secret for a happy home. Yet even venerable bachelorhood has its compensations. By the way," he added, "our colony at Westfield is likely to have an addition to its stud of bachelors. I hear that Harry Spencer is coming home."

"Harry Spencer? How interesting," cried the two women in the same breath.

"The fascinator," continued Mrs. Cole with slow, sardonic articulation.

"To break some other woman's heart, I suppose," said Mrs. Cunningham.

"And yet it is safe to say that he will be received with open arms by your entire sex, including the present company," remarked Gerald with a tug at his mustache.

The sally was received with pensive silence as a deduction apparently not to be gainsaid.

"He is very agreeable," said Mrs. Cunningham flatly.

"And extremely handsome," said Mrs. Cole. "Not the type of manly beauty which would cause my mature heart to flutter, but dangerous to the youthful imagination. He used to look like a handsome pirate, and if he had whispered honeyed words to me instead of to Laura—who knows?"

"Poor Laura!"

"They had neither of them a cent; there was nothing for him to do but withdraw. And yet there is no doubt he broke her heart, though there is consumption in her family." Mrs. Cole knit her brows over this attempt on her part to formulate complete justice.

"He's a woman's man," said Andrew Cunningham. He had stepped to the mantel-piece to fill his pipe, and having uttered this fell speech, he lit it and smoked for some moments in silence with his back to the cheerful wood fire before proceeding. No one had seen fit to contradict him. The gaps between his assertions and the subsequent explanations thereof were expected and rarely interrupted. "He does everything well—rides, shoots, plays rackets, golf, cards—is infernally good-looking, as you say, has a pat speech and a flattering eye for every woman he looks at, and yet somehow he has always struck me as a poseur. I wouldn't trust him in a tight place, though he prides himself on his sporting blood. It may be prejudice on my part. Gerald likes him, I believe, because he is a keen rider and always has a good mount. He always has the best of everything going, but what does he live on anyway?"

"Wild oats, perhaps," suggested Marcy. But he hastened to atone for this levity by adding, "He had a little money from his mother, while it lasted, and just after he and Miss Wilford drifted apart, I am told that he followed a tip from Guy Perry on copper stocks and cleaned up enough to enable him to travel round the world."

"Poor Laura!" interjected Mrs. Cole. "What a pity he didn't get a tip earlier!"

"It wasn't enough to marry on," said Marcy, "and it's probably mostly gone by this time."

"That's the sort of thing I complain of," exclaimed Cunningham. "I'm no martinet in morals, Heaven knows, but I always feel a little on my guard with fellows who live by their wits and spend like princes. Confound it, you know it isn't quite respectable even in a free country." Andrew spoke with a wag of his head as though he expected to be adjudged an old fogy for this conservative utterance.

"He's an attractive fellow on the surface anyway," answered Marcy after a pause, "and will be an addition from the hunting standpoint. And—give the devil his due, Andrew—if he was looking for money only, there were several heiresses he might have married. That would have made him irreproachable at once."

Mrs. Cole drew a long breath. "Perfectly true, Mr. Marcy. I never thought of it before. Harry Spencer doesn't look at a woman twice unless he admires her, no matter how rich she is. He could have married several, of course, if he had tried."

"Dozens. That's the humiliating part of it," assented Mrs. Cunningham.

"When he is ready to settle down that's what he'll do—pick out some woman with barrels of money," said Andrew. Having once got a proposition in his head he was wont to stick to it tenaciously, like a puppy to a root.

"You misjudge him—you misjudge him!" cried Mrs. Cole eagerly. "He won't do anything of the kind. He will never marry any woman unless she has money—or he has; that I'm ready to admit. But, on the other hand, he'll never ask anyone to marry him unless he loves her for herself alone, and—and," she continued with a gasp born of the thrill which the definiteness of her insight caused her, "there are very few women in the world whom he is liable to fall in love with. That's what makes him so interesting. He is polite to us all, but the majority of women bore him at heart."

Marcy laughed. "A masterly diagnosis," he said. "And now that he has seen the world and is returning heart-free, so far as we know, there will naturally be curiosity as to how he will bear the ordeal of a fresh contact with native loveliness."

"Exactly," said the two women together, and with an engaging frankness which quite overshadowed the grunt by which the master of the house indicated his suspicious dissent from this exposition of character.

IV

Harry Spencer had been travelling nearly three years. Naturally, he found some changes and some new faces at Westfield. Concerning the former he was becomingly appreciative. He promptly ranged himself on the side of progress, admired the new club-house and the new establishments in the neighborhood, and evinced a willingness to take an active part in the enlarged energies of the club. During his peregrinations in foreign lands he had visited the St. Andrew's golf links, and he had views regarding bunkers and other features of the game which he was prepared to advocate. When he had left home the bicycle was all the rage, and some portion of his journeyings had been on an up-to-date machine. But he found now that the fashionable portion of the community had dropped this craze, and that to ride a "wheel" was beginning to be considered a bore except as a means of getting from one place to another. The fever of golf was rampant instead, and had reached the stage where its votaries were almost delirious in their devotion, notably the people most unfitted to play the game, and who had taken it up in order to be in fashion. During the spring and summer following his return the improved links at Westfield was crowded with players of every grade whose proficiency was generally in reverse proportion to the number of clubs they carried.

Soon after the season had fairly opened and the greens were in good order the lately returned wanderer found himself one morning engaged in giving a lesson in the royal and ancient game to Miss Peggy Blake, who had a severe attack of the disease and promised to be a proficient pupil, for Dobson, the professional at the Hunt Club, had declared that she had a free swing and could follow through as well as most men. The trouble at the moment was that, after taking a free swing, she either failed to hit the ball altogether or hit it off at some distressing angle. As she explained volubly to everybody, until within a week she had been making screaming brassie shots which carried a hundred and fifty yards, but had suddenly lost her game completely. Harry had kindly offered himself as a coach, a delightful proposition to the blithe young woman, especially as Dobson was engaged for the time being in superintending the primary and elephantine efforts of Miss Ella Marbury, the stout maiden sister of Wagner Marbury, the Western multi-millionnaire and proprietor of one of the new neighboring palaces so obnoxious to Mrs. Cunningham. Miss Peggy was more than pleased to have for an hour or two the uninterrupted companionship of this good-looking and redoubtable gallant, whose attentions were to be regarded as a feather in her cap, and who would doubtless be able to tell her what she was doing wrong.

Hers was one of the new faces, and Harry had given his following to understand that he admired her spirited and comely personality. "Miss West Wind" he had christened her genially, and the epithet had spread with the rumor that he had noticed her. Yet it was tacitly understood that he had no intention of interfering with the suit of his friend Guy Perry, who was supposed to be well in the lead of the other pursuers of the breezy maiden. Yet, though he sought to give the impression that his favor in this case was merely an artistic tribute and that he still walked scatheless in the world of women, he was glad of an opportunity to stroll over the links in her society. She would entertain him. Besides, she was a fluent talker, and he could count on her retailing for his edification more or less of the current history of Westfield written between the lines, which was only to be picked up gradually by one who had been prevented by absence from personal observation.

It was a very simple matter to detect the trouble with his companion's stroke.

"You don't keep your eye on the ball, Miss Blake. That's the whole trouble with you. Anyone can see that."

Peggy looked incredulous. "If there is one special thing more than another which I try to bear constantly in mind, it is to keep my eye on the ball. Do I really take it off, Mr. Spencer? Of course you must know. There are so many other things to remember, but I did think I was completely disciplined on that point. Watch me now."

Thereupon she proceeded to execute a dashing stroke, her evident standard being to carry her club through with such velocity as to bring the head round her left shoulder and cause her to execute a pirouette like the pictures of the golfing girls in the magazines. The ball flew off at a tangent and narrowly missed her own caddy.

"How rotten!" she murmured. "I had both my eyes glued on the ball, and you see what happened. And only a week ago I was driving like a streak." Her expletive was merely the popular phrase of the day by which golden youth of both sexes was apt to express even trivial dissatisfaction.

She was a pathetic figure of distress. Her exertions had heightened her color so that it suggested the poppy rather than the rose, and was not unlike the hue of her trig golfing garment. She swept back a stray ringlet which had escaped from under her hat. "You see I have lost my game utterly, Mr. Spencer."

Harry laughed. "You were looking at me out of the corners of your eyes that time. Lower your lids until you exaggerate the modest maiden and don't move your head." It was a half-deferential, half-sardonic voice with a caressing touch, indicating temporary devotion to the subject-matter in hand which was flattering. "Swing more easily," he added, "and don't try to rival the Gibson girl until you recover confidence." Then he corrected slightly her stance and the position of her hands—all with a deft yet bantering grace of manner which soothed and attracted her. He went through the correct motions of the stroke for her enlightenment, and as he stood erect and supple Peggy did not forbear to reflect that he was very handsome. How dark his hair and eyes were! It was a bold sort of beauty, and, though he wore neither mustache nor beard, the faintly bluish tinge of his complexion betrayed that, but for the barber, he would have been what Mrs. Herbert Cole might have termed an incarnate symphony in black. He appeared harmoniously muscular. He executed the necessary movements with lithe, nervous energy, focusing his attention tensely for the brief occasion. The moment he lowered his club he regained his leisurely and rather indolent demeanor.

His pupil essayed to follow his instructions. At the third attempt the ball sailed straight as an arrow to a moderate distance, which comforted the performer, but she felt too nervously excited to exult. It might be only an accident.

"Try again," he said confidentially. "You've almost got it."

Once more the ball shot correctly from the club. Harry stooped and placed another on the tee. Peggy swung, then followed through with a little of her old elasticity. It flew like a rifle bullet low and long across the distant bunker.

She rose on the tips of her toes as she followed its entrancing flight. "I've got back my game," she cried jubilantly. "You've saved my life, Mr. Spencer." She looked as though she would have been glad, had convention permitted, to throw her arms around her benefactor's neck. And to the true golfer it would not seem an exaggerated reward. "I've been in the slough of despond for nearly a week, and playing worse every day. Now I'm in the seventh heaven, and it's all your doing."

He acknowledged the exuberant gratitude with a graceful mock heroic bow. "I shall consider my terms. The charge should be considerable."

Just then by the sheerest chance a white carnation which Peggy was wearing at her throat became detached from her dress and fell to the ground. He picked it up, and, holding it before him and looking into her eyes, said with melodious assurance:

"I will keep this, if I may, as my tuition fee."

Peggy looked embarrassed and let fall her eyes, albeit not easily disconcerted. The carnation was one from a bunch which Guy Perry had sent her the day before, and to hand it over seemed almost an act of treason, though they were not yet actually engaged. Yet she was conscious that she thought this new acquaintance charming. Silence gives consent where lovely woman is concerned. At any rate, when she looked up he was in the act of placing it in his buttonhole. But his fingers had paused in their work as a consequence of his arrested glance. A feminine figure outlined on the crest of adjacent rising ground had suddenly caught his eye. She was addressing her ball for a brassie shot, and as he gazed it was performed with a sweeping grace of which the lack of effort was the salient charm.

Peggy, whose eyes had promptly followed the direction of his, vouchsafed the desired information.

"Mrs. Herbert Maxwell."

"Really!" There was a shade of interest in the monosyllable, as though the identity of some one whom he had been rather curious to meet had been revealed to him.

"You haven't met her?"

"Not yet."

"Oh, you'd like her immensely."

The words were uttered with such naive confidence that Harry Spencer turned away his gaze from the new attraction to survey the old.

"How do you know?" he inquired jauntily.

Peggy spluttered a little at this flank attack. "Oh, well, you know, she's so awfully clever. She's different. She'd pique your curiosity anyway," she concluded, recovering her aplomb.

"Am I so difficult to please?" he asked sententiously. He answered the question himself. "Yes, I admit that I am." His look of admiration, which Peggy divined was constitutional with him on such occasions, was best to be met by diversion.

"I shall never be able to play golf as Lydia Maxwell does, and I've been at it twice as long. She has only played this spring, and Dobson says that she has a better idea of the game than any other woman. It's just knack with her, for her balls go farther than mine and yet she makes scarcely an exertion. You couldn't help admire her in all sorts of ways. It has been a dreadfully quiet season for her, though, for when her baby was six weeks old and she had sent out cards for two musical parties in their new town house, her husband's mother, old Mrs. Maxwell, died suddenly, and she had to go into mourning. So they went to Southern California for February and March, and moved down here as soon as they returned. She took lessons in golf at Los Angeles, and she beat me four up the first time we played, even though I supposed I could give her half a stroke."

While he listened to this monologue, Spencer followed the progress of the subject of it. She was playing with pretty Mrs. Baxter, but, though her opponent was an ordinarily graceful woman, there was a deft harmony in her movements which made Mrs. Baxter appear an unfinished person by comparison.

"They say the real secret is that she has an artistic temperament." The speech was Peggy's by way of reading his thoughts and providing a condensed and comprehensive key.

"And her husband—what is he like? You know he has come to the surface during my absence."

"He hasn't it at all—I mean an artistic temperament. But he's an awfully good sort—awfully; a true sport, and kind as can be." Peggy's vocabulary of enthusiasm, though fundamentally native, sometimes made reprisals on the kindred jargon of Great Britain.

"I see. And you infer that I have an artistic temperament?" A tendency toward challenging unexpectedness was one of Spencer's prime manifestations with women.

Peggy looked embarrassed. She had not bargained for such an unequivocal piece of teasing. She put up her hand to her head to secure her escaping comb. "I don't know you very well, of course, but I had supposed so. Yet I'm not clever, and I dote on Lydia," she added archly.

Harry Spencer did not have to go out of his way for an opportunity to satisfy his curiosity by personal acquaintance with Mrs. Herbert Maxwell. When he and his fair partner had finished the last hole and approached the piazza of the new club-house, they found her sitting there—one of a group of both sexes waiting for luncheon. Peggy, radiant and prodigal of superlatives, proclaimed to one after another that her game had come back. Wasn't it perfectly glorious?—the loveliest thing which had ever happened. And Mr. Spencer had detected at once what was wrong. "Just think of it, I was pressing and took my eye off the ball," she kept reiterating, "and I never knew it. Wasn't it dear of him?"

One of the most characteristic features of golf is that it is not an altruistic pastime. Everyone is feverishly absorbed by the state of his own game, and does not care at heart a picayune for his neighbor's. At the moment of Peggy's vociferous advent the assembled company were talking in pairs, and each member of each pair was endeavoring to excite the interest of his or her partner in the dialogue by glowing or dejected narration of why his or her score was lower or higher than the speaker's average. In some cases both were talking at once and neither listened. Oftener, perhaps, each had asserted an innings, and the strongest or most persistent lungs held the mastery. Miss Marbury, who under the tutelage of Dobson had done the longest hole in 12 and the eighteen holes in 132—five better than ever before—was bubbling over with ecstasy and soliciting congratulations. Douglas Hale, who had failed by one stroke to surpass his previous record of 82, was telling hoarsely and pathetically to everyone whom he could buttonhole how it happened.

"At the fourteenth hole I was on the green in two and took seven for the hole. Seven! Just think of that, seven! Five strokes on the green." As he uttered the words with excruciating precision, he would hold up the five fingers of his hand and shake them at his auditor. It was an experience which would last him all day and as far into the evening as he could find new listeners, especially if he could endeavor to take the edge off his disappointment by Scotch and soda.

Consequently, though everybody heard that Miss Peggy Blake had recovered her game, and her breezy invasion caused a stir, the fact that she had done so was of interest only because of the means by which this had been brought to pass. It was Harry Spencer, not she, who became the cynosure of numerous feminine eyes. If he had put Peggy onto her game, why not them onto theirs? Peggy, mistaking the reason for the pause in the general chatter for interest in her improvement, proceeded to rehearse gleefully the details of her triumph for the benefit of the company. But Douglas Hale, in no mood to be side-tracked by any such interruption, stepped forward, and hooking his arm in Harry Spencer's, led him apart with a mysterious "A word with you, old man."

Having thus enforced an audience, he held forth in the low tone appropriate to an interesting confidence. "Just now I was 58 at the end of the thirteenth hole, and was on the green of the fourteenth in two, and I took seven for the hole. Five puts on the green! Think of that, five!" he whispered hoarsely, and shook his five fingers in Harry's face. "Seven for the hole. And I finished in 82. Tied my own record. Wasn't that the meanest streak of luck a man ever had? Five puts, and two of them rimmed the cup."

His victim listened indulgently. The firm grip on his arm precluded escape.

"You must learn to put, my dear fellow."

"That's the most sickening part of it. I made every other put. Let me tell you—you remember the slope of the fourteenth green? Well, I——"

Realizing what he was in for, Harry took advantage of a momentary pause on the part of his torturer for the purpose of lighting a cigarette. His observing eyes had noticed that Mrs. Maxwell was standing apart from the other women who were within range of Miss Blake's jubilant reiteration. He wrenched himself free from Douglas's clutch.

"It was a case of downright hard luck, and now, in return for my heart-felt sympathy and for listening to your tale of woe, introduce me to Mrs. Herbert Maxwell."

Puffing at his half-lighted cigarette, Douglas Hale reached out to recover his lost grip. "Wait a minute. You haven't heard half. I will show you just how it happened."

Spencer intercepted the reaching fingers and grabbed the offender's wrist, and said, with jocund firmness, "I don't care a tinker's dam how it happened, Douglas, and I tell you you can't put. Introduce me to Mrs. Maxwell."

This quip caused the egotist to draw himself up stiffly. He was proof against hints and ordinary recalcitration, but such an unmistakable rebuff was not to be ignored; that is, he could not with proper self-respect continue the harangue on which he was bent.

"Of course if you don't care to hear how it happened, I won't tell you." So saying, Douglas suffered himself to be conveyed the necessary few steps, and performed the ceremony of introduction.

Lydia let her eyes rest with keen but interested scrutiny on this new-comer. He was a boon at the moment, for she had taken the gauge of everybody at Westfield, and was conscious that neither her heart nor her brain was satisfied. She craved novelty and true aesthetic appreciation. Did anyone really understand her? Not even Fannie Cole, who came the nearest to divining her hatred of the commonplace and her dread of being bored. But Fannie, though discerning, chose to remain a slave to the canons of conformity. That morning, in her looking-glass she had asked herself the question, "Why did I ever marry Herbert Maxwell?" But she had asked it with no malice aforethought, merely as one who, with leisure to take account of stock, foots up his assets and puts the question, "Am I solvent?" The interrogation was simply searching and contemplative. The answer had been prompt, and in a measure assuring. "Because it gave me everything I need." Yet, somehow, there remained a cloud upon her spirit. Was this all? Did life offer nothing further?

"We make a fuss and circumstance about our sports," she said.

"They do creak."

It was agreeable to be comprehended so promptly. "It isn't sport for sport's sake, but for the sake of the cups and because it's the thing."

"And above all to beat the other fellow. That's the national creed. It's so in everything—competition. We are brought up from childhood to consider that winning is the thing which counts. We must win at any cost at foot-ball or trade, in affairs or in love."

She made one of her little pauses. Decidedly he was a kindred spirit and to be cultivated. "I am an exotic then."

"How so?"

"Competition—the national creed—does not interest me."

"Because you win so easily. I watched you play this morning. You will have no rival of your own sex here."

She ignored the tribute; she knew that already; it was the thesis which interested her.

"It bores me—winning, I mean. Golf, for the time being, is a delight."

He gave her a pirate glance, as though to search her soul, and uttered one of his bold sallies:

"That is, your doll is stuffed with——"

She checked him, shaking her head. "Oh, no. That is, I think not. I have never cut her open. I had in mind something quite different." Her dainty face grew pensive as she sought the exact phrase to interpret her psychology. "I have never had to struggle for anything. It has always come to me."

"Exactly." His note of emphasis reminded her that her words were, after all, merely an indirect echo of his diagnosis. "But your time is sure to come," he asserted confidently.

The smile of incredulity which curved her lips betrayed entertainment also. "In what field?" she inquired.

Spencer shrugged his shoulders. "I am a student of character, not a soothsayer."

"And then?" she queried.

"You will be like the rest of us—only more so. You could not bear to lose at any cost."

What might have seemed effrontery in some men was but a piquant challenge in his mouth, so speciously was it uttered. Lydia was not unaccustomed to men whose current coin was sardonic sallies, as witness the veteran Gerald Marcy. But this was something different. Her soul had been suddenly pitchforked by a professor of anatomy and held up under her nose with the caveat that she was ignorant of the mainsprings of her own behavior. It was impudence, but novel, and she forgave it with the reflection that he would live to eat his gratuitous deductions, which would be the neatest form of vengeance.

The smile of incredulity which curved her lips betrayed entertainment also.

V

Before many weeks had elapsed it began to be whispered at Westfield that Harry Spencer and Mrs. Herbert Maxwell were seeing more or less of each other. They appeared together not infrequently on the golf links; it was known that he was giving her lessons at her own house in bridge whist, the new game of cards; they had been met walking in the lanes; and—most significant item, which caused the colony to prick up its ears and ask, "What does this mean?"—two youthful anglers had encountered them strolling in the lonely woods skirting distant Duck Pond. This last discovery, which was early in September, led to the conclusion that, under cover of her mourning, Lydia must have been seeing more of him than anyone had imagined. Yet, even then, though alert brains indulged in knowing innuendoes, Mrs. Cole's epigrammatic estimate of the matter was generally accepted as sound:

"A woman in mourning for her mother-in-law requires diversion."

It seemed probable that Lydia was amusing herself, and that Harry Spencer was playing the tame cat for their mutual edification. The possibility that he had been caught at last and that she was luring him on that she might lead him like a bear with a ring through his nose, and thus avenge her sex for his past indifference, was regarded as unlikely but delightful. That Lydia was enamored of her admirer, and that they both cared, was not seriously entertained until many circumstances seemed to point to such a deduction. Westfield was not wholly without experience in intimacies between husbands or wives and a third party. But only rarely had there been fire as well as smoke in these cases. And even then there had never been up to this time an open scandal. Matters had been patched up or the veil of diplomatic convention had been drawn so skilfully over them that most people were left in the dark as to the real truth. Almost invariably the intimacies in question reminded one of the antics of horses with too high action who had all the show but little of the quality of runaways; and the preferences manifested were not always inconsistent with conjugal devotion. Consequently, everyone took for granted that this was only another "fake" instance of family disarrangement, entered on to pass the time and to provide that appearance of evil which the American woman seems to find a satisfying substitute for the real article. As Mrs. Cole once remarked in defending the propensity to Gerald Marcy, if one's vanity is flattered, why should one go farther?

The buzz of curiosity was stimulated during the ensuing autumn by a variety of fresh and compromising rumors. Consequently, when at a golfing luncheon party given at the club by Mrs. Gordon Wallace in October, Mrs. Baxter, whose blue eyes always suggested innocence, asked in her demure way what the latest news was from "The Knoll," every tongue had something new to impart. The most sensational as well as the latest piece of information was provided by Mrs. Cunningham, who repeated it with the air of one whose faith had at last received a serious shock.

"She sat with him on the piazza at 'The Knoll' until three o'clock night before last. Her husband came home at eleven and requested her to go to bed, but there they stayed without him. I call that pretty bad, even if she is Lydia. I wonder how long Herbert Maxwell will permit this sort of thing to go on. Even the worm will turn."

There was an eloquent silence, which was broken by a repetition of Mrs. Cole's whitewashing epigram as to Lydia's need of diversion. Its cleverness and value as a generalization caused a ripple of amusement, but it fell flat as a specific. Old Mrs. Maxwell had been dead many months, yet matters were more disconcerting than ever. Stout Miss Marbury's question was regarded as much more to the point:

"Who saw them, Mrs. Cunningham?"

May Cunningham would have preferred to remain silent on this score, but she perceived that the authenticity of her story was dependent on direct testimony. It was a luncheon of eight. She glanced around the table in an appealing manner as much as to say, "This really is not to be spoken of," and said laconically, "There was another couple present." Then, as though she feared on second thought that the wrong persons might be fixed on, she continued: "Neither of them were married. They are supposed to be engaged, and Lydia acted as their chaperone on the piazza while they took a moonlight ride together."

"Who can they have been?" murmured some one sweetly, and there was a general giggle.

"You wormed it out of me," said Mrs. Cunningham doggedly. "You demanded my credentials. But it doesn't matter about those two, of course, for they're in love."

"How about the others?" ventured Mrs. Baxter.

"Truly, Rachel, you shock me," answered Mrs. Cunningham sternly. "It's no joking matter. It's a very serious situation for this colony, in my opinion. People who don't know us do not think any too well of us already because some of us smoke cigarettes and go in for hunting and an open-air life instead of trying to reform somebody. But this will give the gossips a real handle. Besides, it's disreputable."

"But I really wished to know," murmured Mrs. Baxter. "Does either of them care? And if so, which?"

"My own belief," interjected Mrs. Cole, "as I said just now, is that there's nothing in it—nothing serious. Lydia is simply catering to her æsthetic side, and everyone knows Harry Spencer. It seems to me personally that she has gone too far, but that is a question of taste, and, provided her husband doesn't complain, why need we?" Thereupon she popped into her mouth a luscious-looking coffee cream confection and munched it ruminantly.

"It has become a question of morals," asserted Mrs. Cunningham. "If their relations are what we don't believe them to be, it's a disgrace to Westfield. If they are simply amusing themselves, it's heartless, and I know what I would do if I were Herbert Maxwell."

"So do I," exclaimed Mrs. Reynolds, a spirited young matron with the breath of life in her nostrils, yet, as someone once remarked of her, notoriously devoted to her lord and master.

"Just what my husband said," added Mrs. Miller, a bride of a year's standing, which, considering nothing whatever had been said, provoked a smile and brought a blush to the countenance of the speaker, which deepened as Mrs. Baxter with her accustomed innocence asked:

"What would you do?"

"Pick out the most seductive-looking woman I could set my eyes on, Rachel dear, and"—blurted out Mrs. Reynolds pungently. As she paused an instant seeking her phrase, Mrs. Cunningham interjected:

"Sh! We understand. That might bring her to her senses."