that.... Curiously enough, the alternative of another attack upon the
plutocratic dragon did not suggest itself. That, he told himself, was an
experiment tried and found wanting. But in any event, he must not
outstay his welcome at Mereside; and with this thought in mind he crept
down-stairs daily after the library episode, and would give Margery no
peace because she would not let him go abroad in the town.

"Not to-day, but to-morrow," she said, finally, when there was no longer
any good reason for denying him. "Wait until to-morrow, and if it's a
fine day, I'll drive you in the trap."

"But why not to-day?" he complained.

"'How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless'--what
shall I say; patient, or guest, or--friend?" she laughed, garbling the
quotation to fit the occasion.

"Shakespeare said 'child,'" he suggested mildly.

"And so shall I," she gibed--but the gibe itself was almost a caress.
"Sometimes you remind me of an impatient boy who has been promised a
peach and can't wait until it ripens. But if you must have a reason why
I won't drive you this afternoon, you may. We are going to have a tiny
little social function at Mereside this evening, and I want you to be
fresh and rested for it."

"Oh, my dear Miss Margery!" protested the convalescent, reluctant to his
finger-tips; "not to meet your friends! I am only your poor charity
patient, and----"

"That will do," she declared, tyrannizing over him with a fine
affectation of austere hostess-ship. "_I_ say you are to come
down-stairs this evening to meet a few of our friends. And you will
come."

"Certainly, I shall come, if you wish it," he assented, remembering
afresh his immense obligation; and when the time was ripe he made
himself presentable and felt his way down the dimly lighted library
stair, being minded to slip into the social pool by the route which
promised the smallest splash and the fewest ripples.

It was a stirring of the Philistine in him that led him to prefigure
weariness and banality in the prospect. Without in the least suspecting
it, Griswold was a Brahmin of the severest sect on his social side;
easily disposed to hold aloof and to criticise, and, as a man
Eastern-bred, serenely assured that nothing truly acceptable in the
social sense could come out of the Nazareth of the West.

For this cause he was properly humiliated when he entered the spacious
double drawing-rooms and found them so comfortably crowded by