p. "How do you do, Mrs. Price?"

He would have lingered, but Fanny dismissed him.

"Good-bye," she said. "I may see you this evening."

As he ambled off Mrs. Price returned to the charge. "Where have you
been?"

Fanny patted a yawn. "Listening to sweet nothings."

"From him? Why, he hasn't anything, has he? What did you do?"

Fanny patted another yawn or else another sigh. "I fell on his neck
and sobbed for joy."

"Nonsense. Has he anything, tell me?"

"Not enough to entertain on. Twenty-five thousand a year, I think."

"The impertinence of it!" said the lady.

Had her daughter been an heiress a duke would hardly have satisfied
her. As things were, or more exactly, since the girl began to grow in
beauty she had dreamed for her but one dream--a brilliant match. To
Mrs. Price there could be no brilliance if the party of the second
part had a dollar less than ten million.

"You might have had Loftus," she declared at last. "Where is he, do
you know?"

"Abroad, I hear."

"With that creature?"

Mrs. Price in common with many others had heard of Marie Leroy. But
though others in hearing had not heeded, Mrs. Price took it as a
personal affront.

"Then it is your fault," she snarled. "You could have had him if you
had wanted. Don't tell me. He was in love with you. I could see it."

Fanny was looking at the ocean. A white sail was fainting in the
distance. Like it, a hope she had had was fading away. She watched it
go. It had been very fair, very dear, more dear and fair than any she
had known. But it was going. It was out of reach and now out of
sight. She could not beckon to it.

"What are you staring at?" Mrs. Price asked.

"A sail out there," the girl answered.

Then presently mother and daughter passed into an adjoining corridor
where they had rooms.

CHAPTER IX

FANNY CHANGES HER CLOTHES

Fanny did not appear that evening. In search of her Annandale prowled
vainly around. But on the morrow he ran into her on the beach.

It was still as fine as powder. To have found elbow room there a few
days previous you would have had to go out to sea. Now, in and on it
children were making hillocks and holes. Near them a few groups of
older people loitered. But the coryphees that had danced there were
migrating. Already the Rockingham, a big hotel which faced the beach,
had closed. Sweet-and-twenty was packing her trunk.

The morning itself was of the quality which Lowell has catalogued as
from