d through her mind as she sat by the window and
looked out over the sea. The tide was making flood, and the
fishing-boats anchored in the inlet were pointing seaward. She could
see, too, the bathers below and the children digging in the sand. Now
and then a boat would head for the inlet, drop its sail, and swing
round motionless with the others. Then a speck would break away from
the anchored craft and with the movement of a water-spider land the
fishermen ashore.

None of these things interested her. She could not have told whether
the sun shone or whether the sky was fair or dull. Neither was she
lonely, nor did she miss Max. She was simply
angry--disgusted--disappointed at the situation; at herself, at the
woman who had come between them, at the threatened failure of her
plans. One moment she was building up a house of cards in which she
held all the trumps, and the next instant she had tumbled it to the
ground. One thing she was determined upon--not to take second place.
She would have all of him or none of him.

At the end of the third day Max returned. He had not seen Morton, nor
any of his clerks, nor anybody connected with his office. Neither had
he sent him any message or written him any letter. Morton might have
been dead and buried a century so far as Max or his affairs were
concerned. Nor had he laid his eyes on the beautiful Miss Billeton; nor
visited her house; nor written her any letters; nor inquired for her.
What he did do was to run out to Walnut Hill, have a word with his
manager, and slip back to town again and bury himself in his club. Most
of the time he read the magazines, some pages two or three times over.
Once he thought he would look up one or two of his women friends at
their homes--those who might still be in town--and then gave it up as
not being worth the trouble. At the end of the third day he started for
Barnegat. The air was bad in the city, he said to himself, and
everybody he met was uninteresting. He would go back, hitch up the
grays, and he and Lucy have a spin down the beach. Sea air always did
agree with him, and he was a fool to leave it.

Lucy met him at the station in answer to his telegram sent over from
Warehold. She was dressed in her very best: a double-breasted jacket
and straw turban, a gossamer veil wound about it. Her cheeks were like
two red peonies and her eyes bright as diamonds. She was perched up in
the driver's seat of the drag, and handled the reins and whip w