and many, many girls who would become both a little sooner
than they had fancied because of this.

Betty arrived among the first, chaperoned for the time by the Sinclairs.
George dined with them, asked Betty about Sylvia, and received evasive
responses. Sylvia was surely coming up later. Betty was absorbed,
anyway, in her own affairs, he reflected unhappily. He felt lost in this
huge place where nearly everyone seemed to be paired.

After dinner Lambert remained with Betty and Mrs. Sinclair, but George
and Mr. Sinclair wandered, smoking, through the grove above the lake.
George had had no idea that the news, for so long half expected, would
affect him as it did.

"I suppose," Sinclair muttered, "you've heard about poor Blodgett."

"What?" George asked, breathlessly. "We've little time for newspapers
here."

"I'm not sure," Sinclair answered, "that it's in the papers, but in town
everybody's talking about it. Sylvia's thrown him over."

II

George paused and considered the glowing end of his cigar. Instead of
vast relief he first of all experienced a quick sympathy for Blodgett.
He wanted to say something; it was expected of him, but he was occupied
with the effort to get rid of this absurd sympathy, to replace it by a
profound and unqualified satisfaction.

"Why? Do you know why?" was all he managed.

That was what he wanted, her private reason for this step which all at
once left the field quite open, and shifted their struggle back to its
old, honest basis. It was what he had told her would happen, must
happen. Since she had agreed at last why had she involved poor old
Blodgett at all? Had that merely been one of her defences which had
become finally untenable? Had George conceivably influenced her to its
assumption, at last to its abandonment?

He stared at the opaque white light which rose like a mist from the
waters of the lake. He seemed to see, as on a screen, an adolescent
figure with squared shoulders and flushed cheeks tearing recklessly
along on a horse that wasn't sufficiently untamed to please its rider.
He replaced his cigar between his lips. Naturally she would be the most
exigent of enthusiasts. Probably that was why Blodgett had been so
pitifully anxious to crowd his bulk into the army. She had to be
untrammelled to cheer on the younger, stronger bodies. That was why she
had done it, because war had made her see that George was right by
bringing her to a stark realization of the value of