A few moments before the day had been golden; she went home through a
landscape that somehow seemed to have lost its brightest glow.

CHAPTER XXXIV

KATHARINE DECIDES

Katharine left the field of Runnymede with John Valiant in the
dun-colored motor. She sat in the passenger's seat beside him, while the
bulldog capered, ecstatically barking, from side to side of the rear
cushions. Her father had declined the honor, remarking that he
considered a professional chauffeur a sufficient risk of his valuable
life and that the Chalmers' grays were good enough for him--a decision
which did not wholly displease Katharine.

The car was not the smart Panhard in which she had so often spun down
the avenue or along the shell-roads of the north shore. It lacked those
fin-de-siecle appurtenances which marked the ne plus ultra of its kind,
as her observant eye recognized; but it ran staunch and true. The
powerful hands that gripped the steering-wheel were brown with sun and
wind, and the handsome face above it had a look of keenness and energy
she had never surprised before. They passed many vehicles and there were
few whose occupants did not greet him. In fact, as he presently
remarked, it was a saving of energy to keep his hat off; and he tossed
the Panama into the rear seat. On the rim of the village a group raised
a cheer to which he nodded laughingly, and farther on a little old lady
on a timid vine-covered porch beside a church, waved a black-mitted hand
to him with a sweet old-time gesture. Katharine noted that he bowed to
her with extra care.

"That's Miss Mattie Sue Mabry," he said, "the quaintest, dearest thing
you ever saw. She taught my father his letters." A small freckled-faced
girl was swinging on the gate. "You really must know Rickey Snyder!" he
said, and halted the car at the curb. "Rickey," he called, "I want to
introduce you to Miss Fargo."

"Howdy do?" said Rickey, approaching with an ingratiating bob of the
head. "I saw you at the tournament. Is it true that you can ride on the
train wherever you want to without ever buying any ticket?"

Katharine smiled back. "I'm not sure they'd all take me for nothing,"
she said, "but perhaps a few of them would."

"That must be grand," sighed Rickey. "I reckon you've seen everything in
the world, almost."

"No, indeed. I never saw a tournament like this, for instance. It was
tremendously exciting. Wasn't it!"

"My goodness gracious, yes! Mr. Valiant, I most