orge and nodded. Although she continued to talk to
Dalrymple she didn't turn away. George thought, indeed, that he detected
a slight movement as if to make room for him. It was as if he had been
any man of her acquaintance coming up. Then he had been right?

"Josiah said we'd have you," Dalrymple drawled. "Why didn't you skate?
Anything to get on a horse, what? Freezing pleasure this weather."

George smiled at Sylvia.

"Not with the right horse and companionship."

Any one could see that Dalrymple had already swallowed an antidote for
whatever benefit the day's fresh air and exercise had given him. Still
in the weak face, across which the firelight played, George read other
traits, settled, in a sense admirable; more precious than any
inheritance a son could expect from a washerwoman mother and a labouring
father. Then what was it Dalrymple had always coveted? What had made him
rude to the poor men at Princeton? Something he hadn't had. Money.
America, George reflected, could breed people like that. There was more
than one way of being a snob. He wondered if Dalrymple would ever
submerge his pride enough to come to him for money. He might go to
Blodgett first, but George wasn't at all sure Blodgett would find it
worth his while to buy up the young man.

Blodgett just then joined them. The white waistcoat encircling his
rotund middle was like an advance agent, crying aloud: "The great Josiah
is arriving just behind me."

"Everybody having a good time?" he bellowed.

Mrs. Sinclair, sitting near by, looked up, but her husband smiled
indulgently. George watched Sylvia. Blodgett put the question to her.

"That was a fine ride, wasn't it? I'm always a little afraid for the
horse I ride, though; might bend him in the middle."

George couldn't understand why she gave that friendly smile he coveted
to Blodgett.

"I'd give a lot to ride like this young man," Blodgett went on, patting
George's back. He preened himself. "Still we can't all be born in the
saddle."

The thing was so obvious George laughed outright. Even Sylvia conceded
its ugly, unintentional humour. A smile drew at the corners of her
mouth. If she could enjoy that she was, indeed, for the moment nearer.

Two servants glided around with trays.

Blodgett gulped the contents of his glass and smacked his lips.

"That fellow of mine," he boasted, "has his own blend. Not bad."

Sylvia drank hers with Dalrymple, while Betty over there shook her head.
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