he fathers of the Republic had come
to take the waters. And one day, when a north wind had scattered the
smoke and swept the sky, Howard followed her up the paths to the ridge's
crest, where she stood like a Victory, her garments blowing, gazing off
over the mighty billows to the westward. Howard had never seen a Victory,
but his vision of domesticity was untroubled.

Although it was late in the season, the old-fashioned, rambling hotel was
well filled, and people interested Honora as well as scenery--a proof of
her human qualities. She chided Howard because he, too, was not more
socially inclined.

"How can you expect me to be--now?" he demanded.

She told him he was a goose, although secretly admitting the justice of
his defence. He knew four or five men in the hotel, with whom he talked
stocks while waiting for Honora to complete her toilets; and he gathered
from two of these, who were married, that patience was a necessary
qualification in a husband. One evening they introduced their wives.
Later, Howard revealed their identity--or rather that of the husbands.

"Bowker is one of the big men in the Faith Insurance Company, and Tyler
is president of the Gotham Trust." He paused to light a cigarette, and
smiled at her significantly. "If you can dolly the ladies along once in a
while, Honora, it won't do any harm," he added. "You have a way with you,
you know,--when you want to."

Honora grew scarlet.

"Howard!" she exclaimed.

He looked somewhat shamefaced.

"Well," he said, "I was only joking. Don't take it seriously. But it
doesn't do any harm to be polite."

"I am always polite," she answered a little coldly.

Honeymoons, after all, are matters of conjecture, and what proportion of
them contain disenchantments will never be known. Honora lay awake for a
long time that night, and the poignant and ever recurring remembrance of
her husband's remark sent the blood to her face like a flame. Would
Peter, or George Hanbury, or any of the intimate friends of her childhood
have said such a thing?

A new and wistful feeling of loneliness was upon her. For some days, with
a certain sense of isolation and a tinge of envy which she would not
acknowledge, she had been watching a group of well-dressed, clean-looking
people galloping off on horseback or filling the six-seated buckboards.
They were from New York--that she had discovered; and they did not mix
with the others in the hotel. She had thought it strange that