are seeing the neighbourhood to-day, and to-night motoring to a dance at
Piping Rock, where there is a country club very rich and celebrated.
Now, is it not mysterious: a house without a name, belonging to a
nameless man? Figure to yourself, we eat this man's food, for we are not
allowed to pay, and we know not whom to thank! Last night when we
arrived we were shown to our rooms by a Japanese butler. Each room has
its bath, and not only that, but its own little _salon_. (My suite is
French, Molly's and Captain Winston's is English of the Elizabeth time;
and there are rooms Spanish, Italian, Egyptian, Chinese, Russian, and
Greek.) We bathed and dressed, and went down to dine in a circular
dining-room with inlaid marble walls, and doors of carved, open-work
bronze that have transparent enamel, like iridescent shell let into the
openings. It is the first house I have seen big enough to make the
Goodrich family look small, and the girls screamed with admiration in
the dining-room; but Peter Storm laughed at the whole house. He said he
would like as much to live in the Museum at Athens.

Afterward in the garden Mr. Caspian spoke of that, and said it was "bad
taste," because Mr. Storm could never have been to the Museum of Athens,
and "a man of his stamp" was no judge. It was only an impertinence of
him to pretend, and an accident that he should have climbed up for a
while from his position to ours.

That divided me between a laugh and a snap! Because Mr. Caspian is a
little man without distinction, and Peter--but already you know from my
letters what he is like.

"I thought," said I, "you were socialist, and for you one man was worth
another."

"I am not that now," he hurried to tell me. "Since I came into so much
responsibility I am broader."

I knew what he meant, because now I learn the nuances of English words.
But to spite him I agreed. "Ah, yes, it is in the waist a little, I
suppose!" That was the cat in me, for it is true he is growing fat just
at his waistcoat. But I remembered in time my promise to Larry and
dropped the cat to be the meek mouse, while Mr. C. explained with care
that it was his mind which had broadened out.

Perhaps I might have been sorry I had scratched, if he had not gone on
with talk against Peter Storm, as he always does if he finds me alone,
or else he makes love. He tried to explain two telegrams that Mrs.
Shuster had sent wrong: one which was meant for him, addressed to Mr.
Storm, a