he had got himself adjusted to the novelty of it he began to take
it with a series of thoughtful chuckles.

Into these I dropped with: "Where's her father, anyhow?" I began to
feel, fantastically, that she mightn't have a father.

"He stopped in Savannah," Beverly answered. "He's coming over by the
train. Kitty--Charley's sister, Mrs. Bleecker--did the chaperoning for
us.

"Very expertly, I should guess," I said.

"Perfectly; invisibly," said Beverly. And he returned to his thoughts
and his chuckles.

"After all, it's simple," he presently remarked.

"Doesn't that depend on what she's here for?"

"Oh, to break it."

"Why come for that?"

He took another turn among his cogitations. I took a number of turns
among my own, but it was merely walking round and round in a circle.

"When will she announce it, then?" he demanded.

"Ah!" I murmured. "You said she was a good player."

"But a fire-eater!" he resumed. "For her. Oh, hang it! She'll let him
go!"

"Then why hasn't she?"

He hesitated. "Well, of course her game could be spoiled by--"

His speech died away into more cogitation, and I had to ask him what he
meant.

"By love getting into it somewhere."

We walked on through Worship Street, which we had reached some while
since, and the chief features of which I mechanically pointed out to
him.

"Jolly old church, that," said Beverly, as we reached my favorite corner
and brick wall. "Well, I'll not announce it!" he murmured gallantly.

"My dear man," I said, "Kings Port will do all the announcing for you
to-morrow."

XV: What She Came to See

But in this matter my prognostication was thoroughly at fault; yet
surely, knowing Kings Port's sovereign habit, as I had had good cause
to know it, I was scarce beyond reasonable bounds in supposing that the
arrival of Miss Rieppe would heat up some very general and very audible
talk about this approaching marriage, against which the prejudices of
the town were set in such compact array. I have several times mentioned
that Kings Port, to my sense, was buzzing over John Mayrant's affairs;
buzzing in the open, where one could hear it, and buzzing behind closed
doors, where one could somehow feel it; I can only say that henceforth
this buzzing ceased, dropped wholly away, as if Gossip were watching so
hard that she forgot to talk, giving place to a great stillness in
her kingdom. Such occasional words as were uttered sounded oddly and
egregiously clear