should have
had with her, something the absence of which was taking the savor from the
day's hunting.

It must be the very bigness of this great, splendid world that gave her
the sense of being alone at sea. Intuitively she turned and looked at
Peter riding beside her. There was something in his face that made her
look again before accepting the realization at first incredulously, then
with frank amusement. Peter had scarcely spoken since they left the ranch.
She had come down to breakfast so sure of her new riding-habit. The
Wetmore girls had been moved to hyperboles about its cut and fit and the
trim shortness of the skirt--short riding-skirts were something of a
novelty then. The fine gold hair, twisted tight at the back of the shapely
head, was like a coiled mass of burnished metal, some safe-keeping device
of mint or gold-worker till the season of coining or fashioning should
come round. The translucent flesh-tints, pearl-white flushing into
pink--"Bouguereau realized at last," as Nannie Wetmore was in the habit of
summing up her cousin's complexion--was as marvellous as ever. The delicate
firmness of profile gave to the face the artificial perfection of an old
miniature, rather than of a flesh-and-blood countenance, and all these
were there as of yore, but the marvel of them failed of the customary
tribute. Kitty, on scanty reflection, was at no loss to translate Peter's
reserve into a language at once flattering and retributive. In her scheme
of life he was always to be her devoted cavalier, as indeed he had been
from the beginning. She loved her own small eminence too well to imperil
her tenure of it by sharing its pretty view of men and things with any
one. In country house parties she loved the mild wonder that the
successful _litterateuse_ could fight and play and win her social triumphs
so well. She loved the star part, and next to playing it she enjoyed
wresting it from other women or eclipsing them completely in some
conspicuously minor role, while, in the matter of dress, Miss Colebrooke
went beyond the point decreed by the most exigent mandates of fashion.
When hats were worn over the face, her admirers had to content themselves
with a glimpse of her charming mouth and chin. When they flared, hers
fairly challenged the laws of equilibrium. She danced with the same
facility with which she rode, swam, and played tennis. In doing these
things supremely well she felt that she vindicated the position of the
w