ppose it was
Richmond, and his train just pulling into the Byrd Street Station. He
stretched out luxuriously, and let his mind picture the whole familiar
scene. The wind was blowing right, so there was the mellow homely smell
of tobacco in the streets, and plenty of people all along the way to
hail him with outstretched hands and shouts of "Hey, Skip Cary, when did
you get back?" "Welcome home, my boy!" "Well, will you _look_ what the
cat dragged in!" And so he came to his own front door-step, and, walking
straight in, surprised the whole family at breakfast; and yes--doggone
it! if it wasn't Sunday, and they having waffles! And after that his
obliging fancy bore him up Franklin Street, through Monroe Park, and so
to Miss Sally Berkeley's door. He was sound asleep before he reached it,
but in his dreams, light as a little bird, she came flying down the
broad stairway to meet him, and--

But when he waked next morning, he did not find himself in Virginia,
but in Devonshire, where, to his unbounded embarrassment, a white
housemaid was putting up his curtains and whispering something about his
bath. And though he pretended profound slumber, he was well aware that
people do not turn brick-red in their sleep. And the problem of what was
the matter with the Sherwood family was still before him.

II

"They're playing a game," he told himself after a few days. "That is,
Lady Sherwood and Gerald are--poor old Sir Charles can't make much of a
stab at it. The game is to make me think they are awfully glad to have
me, when in reality there's something about me, or something I do, that
gets them on the raw."

He almost decided to make some excuse and get away; but after all, that
was not easy. In English novels, he remembered, they always had a wire
calling them to London; but, darn it all! the Sherwoods knew mighty well
there wasn't any one in London who cared a hoot about him.

The thing that got his goat most, he told himself, was that they
apparently didn't like his friendship with Chev. Anyway they didn't seem
to want him to talk about him; and whenever he tried to express his warm
appreciation for all that the older man had done for him, he was
instantly aware of a wall of reserve on their part, a holding of
themselves aloof from him. That puzzled and hurt him, and put him on his
dignity. He concluded that they thought it was cheeky of a youngster
like him to think that a man like Chev could be his friend; and if that