remarks as: "He can't be, or he wouldn't be at
Willcox's"; or, contradictorily: "He must be, or he'd do something
besides sit in the sun"; or, "Don't they always have to drink lots of
milk?" or, "Anyway, they're quite positive that it's not catching"; or,
"Poor boy, what nice hair he's got."

With the old-timers the new-comer, whose case was otherwise so
doubtful, had one thing in common: a coonskin coat. It was handsome of
its kind, unusually long, voluminous, and black. The upturned collar
came above his ears, and in the opening his face showed thin and white,
and his eyes, always intent upon the book in his lap, had a look of
being closed. Two things distinguished him from other men: his great
length of limb and the color and close-cropped, almost moulded, effect
of his hair. It was the color of old Domingo mahogany, and showed off
the contour of his fine round head with excellent effect.

The suspicion that this interesting young man was a consumptive was set
aside by Willcox himself. He told Mrs. Bainbridge, who asked (on account
of her little children who, et cetera, et cetera), that Mr. Masters was
recuperating from a very stubborn attack of typhoid. But was Mr. Willcox
quite sure? Yes, Mr. Willcox had to be sure of just such things. So Mrs.
Bainbridge drove out to Miss Langrais' tea at the golf club, and passed
on the glad tidings with an addition of circumstantial detail. Mister
Masters (people found that it was quite good fun to say this, with
assorted intonations) had been sick for many months at--she thought--the
New York Hospital. Sometimes his temperature had touched a hundred and
fifteen degrees and sometimes he had not had any temperature at all.
There was quite a romance involved, "his trained nurse, my dear, not one
of the ordinary creatures, but a born lady in impoverished
circumstances," et cetera, et cetera. And later, when even Mister
Masters himself had contradicted these brightly colored statements, Mrs.
Bainbridge continued to believe them. Even among wealthy and idle women
she was remarkable for the number of impossible things she could believe
before breakfast, and after. But she never made these things seem even
half plausible to others, and so she wasn't dangerous.

Mister Masters never remembered to have passed so lonely and dreary a
February. The sunny South was a medicine that had been prescribed and
that had to be swallowed. Aiken on the label had looked inviting enough,
but he found t