e looked well on
horseback, and in his corduroys, with a soft shirt and flowing tie, a
soft felt hat, he was at his best.

He found George and Oscar on the west terrace, shaded by blue and
white-striped awnings, with a macaw, red and blue on a perch--a peacock
glimmering at the foot of the steps--and the garden blazing beyond.

There were iced drinks in tall glasses--a litter of cigarettes on
smoking-stands, magazines and newspapers on the stone floors, packs of
cards on a small table. Oscar, hunched up in a high-backed Chinese
chair, was white and miserable. George looked bored to extinction.

Randy, coming in, gave a clear-cut impression of strength and youth.

"Mother sent some wine jelly for Mrs. Waterman," he said to Oscar. "It
was made from an old recipe, and she thought it might be different. And
there were some hundred-leaved roses from our bush. I gave them to your
man."

Oscar brightened. He was grateful for the kindness of these queer
neighbors of his who would have nothing to do with him and his wife when
they were well, and who had seemed to care not at all for his money. But
who, now that sickness had come and sorrow, offered themselves and their
possessions unstintedly.

"I'll go and see that Flora gets them," he said. "She hasn't any
appetite. She's--it's rather discouraging----"

Randy, left alone with Dalton, was debonair and delightful. George,
looking at him with speculative eyes, decided that there was more to this
boy than he would have believed. He had exceedingly good manners and an
ease that was undeniable. There was of course good blood, back of him.
And in a way it counted. George knew that he could never have been at
ease in old clothes in the midst of elegance.

It was Randy who spoke first of Becky. Dalton's heart jumped when he
heard her name. Night after night he had ridden towards Huntersfield,
only to turn back before he reached the lower gate. Once he had ventured
on foot as far as the garden, and in the hush had called softly, "Becky."
But no one had answered. He wondered what he would have done if Becky
had responded to his call. "I am not going to be fool enough to marry
her," he told himself, angrily, yet knew that if he played the game with
Becky there could be no other end to it.

Randy said, quite naturally, that Becky was going away. To Nantucket.
He asked if George had been there.

"Once, on Waterman's yacht. It's quaint--but a bit spoiled by sum