dress him as Cher maitre--"

"I won't insist on that if you'll call me by my first name," said Hamil
mischievously.

"I never will," returned the girl. Always when he suggested it, the
faint pink of annoyed embarrassment tinted Shiela's cheeks. And now
everybody in the family rallied her on the subject, for they all had
come to call him Garry by this time.

"Don't I always say 'Shiela' to you?" he insisted.

"Yes, you do and nobody was consulted. I informed my mother, but she
doesn't seem to resent it. So I am obliged to. Besides I don't like your
first name."

Mrs. Cardross laughed gently over her embroidery; Malcourt, who was
reading the stock column in the _News_, turned and looked curiously at
Hamil, then at Shiela. Then catching Mrs. Carrick's eye:

"Portlaw is rather worried over the market," he said. "I think he's
going North in a day or two."

"Why, Louis!" exclaimed Mrs. Cardross; "then you will be going, too, I
suppose."

"His ways are my ways," nodded Malcourt. "I've been here too long
anyway," he added in a lower voice, folding the paper absently across
his knees. He glanced once more at Shiela, but she had returned to her
letter writing.

Everybody spoke of his going in tones of civil regret--everybody except
Shiela, who had not even looked at him. Cecile's observations were
plainly perfunctory, but she made them nevertheless, for she had begun
to take the same feminine interest in Malcourt that everybody was now
taking in view of his very pronounced attentions to Virginia Suydam.

All the world may not love a lover, but all the world watches him. And a
great many pairs of bright eyes and many more pairs of faded ones were
curiously following the manoeuvres of Louis Malcourt and Virginia
Suydam.

Very little of what these two people did escaped the social Argus at
Palm Beach--their promenades on the verandas of the two great hotels,
their appearance on the links and tennis-courts together, their daily
encounter at the bathing-hour, their inevitable meeting and pairing on
lawn, in ballroom, afloat, ashore, wherever young people gathered under
the whip of light social obligations or in pursuit of pleasure.

And they were discussed. She being older than he, and very wealthy, the
veranda discussions were not always amiable; but nobody said anything
very bitter because Virginia was in a position to be socially respected
and the majority of people rather liked Malcourt. Besides there was
just enou