ing that Andrew
would ask her to go down and dance. She was terribly afraid of the great
folk, poor little soul, but she felt that this strong self-reliant young
man would protect her. Andrew excused himself in a few moments, however,
and went down-stairs. He had bought the right to be in the same room
with those people, and he would claim it.

The treble row of seats was evidently reserved for strangers; no
cottagers were at that end of the room. They sat about the other three
sides with an air of being on their own ground. Andrew walked resolutely
into the room, and took possession of one of the chairs reserved for his
kind. He had only three or four neighbors; most of the tourists had gone
up-stairs, and were darkly surveying the scene. There were no
decorations, but the dowagers were a jewelled dado, the girls an
animated bed of blossoms.

VII

For one hour Andrew sat there, and at its end he comprehended why the
cottagers did not concern themselves about the tickets sold. Not one
icy glance had been directed at the treble row of seats, not one
inquiring stare bent upon the occasional tourist-couple who summoned
courage to take a whirl. He and his companions might have been invisible
intruders on a foreign planet, for all the notice the elect took of
them. There was nothing overt, nothing unkind, but the stranger was as
effectually frozen out as if he had fled before a battery of lorgnettes.
The cottagers were like one large family. There was no more reserve
among the young people than if they had been a party of happy
well-trained schoolchildren. What wonder that the stranger within their
gates felt his remoteness! During the "Lancers" they almost romped. They
might have been on the lawn of one of their own cottages, and these
outsiders hanging on the fence. To any and all without their world they
were unaffectedly oblivious.

At the end of the hour Andrew rose heavily and left his seat. His face
was gray, his knees shook a little. He understood.

* * * * *

But his cup of bitterness was not yet full. As he made his way down the
passage behind one of the rows of chairs reserved for the cottagers, he
beheld a girl who had just entered. He stood still and stared at her,
wondering that he had ever thought other women beautiful. If those he
had worshipped were princesses, this was a goddess. Only New York could
give her that nameless distinction, so curiously unlike the graceful