cenery, and we'll recall the days of the Cafe des Lilacs together.
My wife sends her greetings also.

Clyde.

This letter made Herkimer wonder. There was nothing on which he could
lay his finger, and yet there was something that was not there. With
some misgivings he packed his bag and took the train, calling up again
to his mind the picture of Rantoul, with his shabby trousers pulled up,
decorating his ankles with lavender and black, roaring all the while
with his rumbling laughter.

At the station only the chauffeur was down to meet him. A correct
footman, moving on springs, took his bag, placed him in the back seat,
and spread a duster for him. They turned through a pillared gateway,
Renaissance style, passed a gardener's lodge, with hothouses flashing in
the reclining sun, and fled noiselessly along the macadam road that
twined through a formal grove. All at once they were before the house,
red brick and marble, with wide-flung porte-cochere and verandas, beyond
which could be seen immaculate lawns, and in the middle distances the
sluggish gray of a river that crawled down from the turbulent hills on
the horizon. Another creature in livery tripped down the steps and held
the door for him. He passed perplexed into the hall, which was fresh
with the breeze that swept through open French windows.

[Illustration: Rantoul, ... decorating his ankles with lavender and
black]

"Mr. Herkimer, isn't it?"

He turned to find a woman of mannered assurance holding out her hand
correctly to him, and under the panama that topped the pleasant effect
of her white polo-coat he looked into the eyes of that Tina Glover, who
once had caught his rough hand in her little ones and said timidly:

"You'll always be my friend, my best, just as you are Clyde's, won't
you? And I may call you Britt or Old Boy or Old Top, just as Clyde
does?"

He looked at her amazed. She was prettier, undeniably so. She had
learned the art of being a woman, and she gave him her hand as though
she had granted a favor.

"Yes," he said shortly, freezing all at once. "Where's Clyde?"

"He had to play in a polo-match. He's just home taking a tub," she said
easily. "Will you go to your room first? I didn't ask any one in for
dinner. I supposed you would rather chat together of old times. You have
become a tremendous celebrity, haven't you? Clyde is so proud of you."

"I'll go to my room now," he said shortly.

The valet had preceded him, opening