kes me
perfectly furious--I have only the most ridiculously commonplace and
comfortable affection for you--the sort which prompts mother to send you
quinine and talcum powder--"

Balanced there side by side they fell to laughing.

"Sentiment? Yes," she said; "but oh! it's the kind that offers
witch-hazel and hot-water bottles to the best beloved! Mr. Hamil, why
can't we flirt comfortably like sensibly frivolous people!"

"I wish we could, Cecile."

"I wish so, too, Garret. No, that's too formal--Garry! There, that ends
our chances!"

"You're the jolliest family I ever knew," he said. "You can scarcely
understand how pleasant it has been for me to camp on the edges of your
fireside and feel the home-warmth a little--now and then--"

"Why do you remain so aloof then?"

"I don't mean to. But my heart is in this business of your father's--the
more deeply in because of his kindness--and your mother's--and for all
your sakes. You know I can scarcely realise it--I've been with you only
a month, and yet you've done so much for me--received me so simply, so
cordially--that the friendship seems to be of years instead of hours."

"That is the trouble," sighed Cecile; "you and I never had a chance to
be frivolous; I'm no more self-conscious with you than I am with Gray.
Tell me, why was Virginia Suydam so horrid to us at first?"

Hamil reddened. "You mustn't ask me to criticise my own kin," he said.

"No," she said, "you couldn't do that.... And Miss Suydam has been more
civil recently. It's a mean, low, and suspicious thing to say, but I
suppose it's because--but I don't think I'll say it after all."

"It's nicer not to," said Hamil. They both knew perfectly well that
Virginia's advances were anything but disinterested. For, alas! even the
men of her own entourage were now gravitating toward the Cardross
family; Van Tassel Cuyp was continually wrinkling his nose and fixing
his dead-blue eyes in that direction; little Colonel Vetchen circled
busily round and round that centre of attraction, even Courtlandt
Classon evinced an inclination to toddle that way. Besides Louis
Malcourt had arrived; and Virginia had never quite forgotten Malcourt
who had made one at a house party in the Adirondacks some years since,
although even when he again encountered her, Malcourt had retained no
memory of the slim, pallid girl who had for a week been his fellow-guest
at Portlaw's huge camp on Luckless Lake.

* * *