, a little preoccupied,
a little absent, a wonderfully fine and dignified figure. Under her
misanthropic exultation, Sylvia felt again and again the stab of
her immense admiration for him, her deep affinity for his way of
conducting life. Whatever place he might take in the circle around the
luncheon table, she found him inevitably at the center of all her own
thoughts. However it might seem to those evidently greatly struck with
her extraordinary good luck, her triumph was in reality only the most
pitiful of pretenses. But such as it was, and it gleamed richly enough
on the eyes of the onlookers, she shook it out with a flourish and
gave no sign of heartsick qualms. She gave a brilliantly undivided
attention to the bit of local history Page was telling her, of a
regiment of Green Mountain Boys who had gone down to the Battle of
Bennington over the pass between Windward and Hemlock Mountain, and
she was able to stir Page to enthusiasm by an appreciative comparison
of their march with the splendid and affecting incident before
Marathon, when the thousand hoplites from the little town of Plataea
crossed the Cithaeron range and went down to the plain to join the
Athenians in their desperate stand.

"How do you _happen_ to come East just now, anyhow?" inquired old Mr.
Sommerville, resolutely shouldering his way into the conversation.

"My yellow streak!" affirmed his nephew. "Colorado got too much for
me. And besides, I was overcome by an atavistic longing to do chores."
He turned to Sylvia again, the gesture as unconscious and simple as a
boy's. "My great-grandfather was a native of these parts, and about
once in so often I revert to type."

"All my mother's people came from this region too," Sylvia said. She
added meditatively, "And I think I must have reverted to type--up
there on the mountain, this morning."

He looked at her silently, with softening eyes.

"You'll be going back soon, I suppose, as usual!" said old Mr.
Sommerville with determination.

"To Colorado?" inquired Page. "No, I think--I've a notion I'll stay on
this summer for some time. There is an experiment I want to try with
alfalfa in Vermont."

Over his wineglass Arnold caught Sylvia's eye, and winked.

"Still reading as much as ever, I suppose." Mr. Sommerville was not
to be put down. "When I last saw you, it was some fool socialistic
poppycock about the iniquity of private exploitation of natural
resources. How'd they ever have been exploited