gton had had a sort of fjord blasted out of the solid rock on the
seaward side, as a passage for his big steam yacht, with steps leading
from the house to the little wharf. Here lay the _Mayfair_ when not in
service; from the road you could see her mast tops, as though
protruding from the ground. But now the _Mayfair_ was down in a South
Brooklyn shipyard; this thought, recurring to Mrs. Wellington, framed
in her mind a mental picture of all that she had undergone as a result
of that stupid blowing out of steam valves, which, by the way, had
seriously scalded several of the engine-room staff and placed the
keenest of edges upon her home-coming mood. No subject of nervous
irritability, she. Incidents, affairs, persons, or things qualified to
set the fibres of the average woman of her age tingling, were, with
her, as the heat to steel; they tempered her, made her hard, keen,
cold, resilient.

The butler, flanked by two or three men servants, met them at the door.
Breakfast was served, he said. Prince Koltsoff, indeed, had already
arrived, and had breakfasted.

"The Prince--" Mrs. Wellington checked herself and hurried into the
breakfast room with inscrutable face. Her daughter followed, smiling
broadly.

"The Prince seems to have anticipated us," she said.

Mrs. Wellington glanced at the alert-faced second man, who had just
brought in the coffee, and compressed her lips into a straight line.

There was no conversation in the course of the short light breakfast.
Anne went to her apartments, while Mrs. Wellington, after arising from
the table, stood for a minute gazing from the window toward the polo
grounds. Then slowly she mounted the stairs and, entering her boudoir,
rang for her maid.

An hour and a half later, massaged, bathed, and robed in a dainty
morning gown, Mrs. Wellington stepped into her "office," than which no
one of her husband's many offices was more business-like, and seated
herself at a large mahogany desk. Miss Hatch, her secretary, arose
from a smaller desk with typewriter attachment and laid before her a
number of checks for signing, bills rendered, invitations, and two bank
books. Then she resumed her seat in silence.

Mrs. Wellington did not glance at the mass of matter. With a muttered
"Thank you," she gazed thoughtfully at the row of white push buttons
inlaid at her elbow. There were more than a dozen of them and they
ranged from the pantry to the kitchen, from the garage to the