ure thing," said Selwyn, laughing in the crushing grasp of the big
fist. "How are you, Austin? Everybody's in the country, I suppose,"
glancing around at the linen-shrouded furniture. "How is Nina? And the
kids? . . . Good business! . . . And Eileen?"

"She's all right," said Austin; "gad! she's really a superb specimen
this summer. . . . You know she rather eased off last winter--got white
around the gills and blue under the eyes. . . . Some heart trouble--we
all thought it was you. Young girls have such notions sometimes, and I
told Nina, but she sat on me. . . . Where's your luggage? Oh, is it all
here?--enough, I mean, for us to catch a train for Silverside this
afternoon."

"Has Nina any room for me?" asked Selwyn.

"Room! Certainly. I didn't tell her you were coming, because if you
hadn't, the kids would have been horribly disappointed. She and Eileen
are giving a shindy for Gladys--that's Gerald's new acquisition, you
know. So if you don't mind butting into a baby-show we'll run down. It's
only the younger bunch from Hitherwood House and Brookminster. What do
you say, Phil?"

Selwyn said that he would go--hesitating before consenting. A curious
feeling of age and grayness had suddenly come over him--a hint of
fatigue, of consciousness that much of life lay behind him.

Yet in his face and in his bearing he could not have shown much of it,
though at his deeply sun-burned temples the thick, close-cut hair was
silvery; for Austin said with amused and at the same time fretful
emphasis: "How the devil you keep the youth" in your face and figure I
don't understand! I'm only forty-five--that's scarcely eight years older
than you are! And look at my waistcoat! And look at my hair--I mean
where the confounded ebb has left the tide-mark! Gad, I'd scarcely blame
Eileen for thinking you qualified for a cradle-snatcher. . . . And, by
the way, that Gladys girl is more of a woman than you'd believe. I
observe that Gerald wears that peculiarly speak-easy-please expression
which is a healthy sign that he's being managed right from the
beginning."

"I had an idea she was all right," said Selwyn, smiling.

"Well, she is. People will probably say that she 'made' Gerald.
However," added Austin modestly, "I shall never deny it--though you know
what part I've had in the making and breaking of him, don't you?"

"Yes," replied Selwyn, without a smile.

Austin went to the telephone and called up his house at Silverside,
saying