dined, rode and flirted with
undiminished zest, bringing, each day, new energy and determination to
the task of enjoying herself.

The enjoyment of her neighbors seemed less important. She preferred that
her part in the cotillion should be observed by a frieze of unculled
wall-flowers. A drive was always pleasanter if it were preceded by a
skirmish with her mother in which Miss Knowles should come off
victorious with the victoria, while Mrs. Knowles accepted the _coup de
grace_ and the coupe. A flirtation--if her languid, seeming innocent
monopoly of a man's time and thoughts could be called by so gross a
name--was more satisfying if it implied the breaking of vows and hearts
and the mad jealousy of some less gifted sister; if it had, like a
Russian folk song, a sob and a wail running through it.

Jimmie had never approved of these amusements and had never hesitated to
express his opinion of them in terms which were intelligible even to her
vanity. From the days when they had played together in the park she had
dreaded his honesty and feared his judgments. "You're such a poacher,
Sylvia," he told her once, "such an inveterate, diabolical Fly-by-Night,
Will-o'-the-Wisp poacher. I sometimes think you'd condescend to take a
shot at me if you didn't know that I'm fair game. But you like to kill
two birds with one stone; smash two hearts with one smile."

During the weeks immediately following the departure of her mentor she
devoted herself whole-heartedly to her favorite form of sport. Besides
her unscrupulousness she was armed with her grandfather's name, the
riches of her dead father, her own beauty, and a mind capable of much
better things. And, since Jimmie's presence would have seriously
interfered with the pleasures of the chase, she was rather glad than
otherwise that he was not there to see--and comment.

Her mother bore his absence with a like stoicism. That astute matron had
long and silently deprecated the regularity with which her Louis Quinze
had groaned beneath one hundred and eighty pounds of ineligibility, the
frequency with which a tall troup horse of spectacular gait and
snortings could be descried beside her daughter's English hunter in the
park, the strange chain of coincidence by which at theater, house party,
dinner, or even church, Jimmie smiling and unabashed, would find his
way to her daughter's side and monopolize her daughter's attention.

In the excitement of the first stages of one of her ex