he early discovered, were
invaluable to him; in meeting the people worth knowing in the town and
vicinity, and in being entertained, and entertaining--all very quietly
and without ostentation.

He had dined, or supped, or played Bridge at all the houses, had given
a few small things himself, and ended by paying off all scores with a
garden party at Clarendon, which Mrs. Carrington had managed for him
with exquisite taste (and, to him, amazing frugality)--and, more
wonderful still, with an entire effacement of _self_. It was Croyden's
party throughout, though her hand was at the helm, her brain
directed--and Hampton never knew.

And the place _had_ looked attractive; with the house set in its wide
sweep of velvety lawn amid great trees and old-fashioned flowers and
hedges. With the furniture cleaned and polished, the old china
scattered in cupboard and on table, the portraits and commissions
freshly dusted, the swords glistening as of yore.

And in that month, Croyden had come to like Hampton immensely. The
absence, in its society, of all attempts at show, to make-believe, to
impress, to hoodwink, was refreshingly novel to him, who, hitherto, had
known it only as a great sham, a huge affectation, with every one
striving to outdo everyone else, and all as hollow as a rotten gourd.

He had not got used, however, to the individual espionage of the
country town--the habit of watching one's every movement, and telling
it, and drawing inferences therefrom--inferences tinctured according to
the personal feelings of the inferer.

He learned that, in three weeks, they had him "taken" with every
eligible girl in town, engaged to four and undecided as to two more.
They busied themselves with his food,--they nosed into his drinks, his
cigars, his cigarettes, his pipes,--they bothered themselves about his
meal hours,--they even inspected his wash when it hung on the line!
Some of them, that is. The rest were totally different; they let every
one alone. They did not intrude nor obtrude--they went their way, and
permitted every one to go his.

So much had been the way of Northumberland, so much he had been used to
always. But--and here was the difference from Northumberland, the vital
difference, indeed--they were interested in you, if _you_ wished them
to be--and it was genuine interest, not pretense. This, and the way
they had treated him as one of them, because Colonel Duval had been
his father's friend, made Croyden feel ver