"Yass, seh! I tote's dem back dis minut, seh!----"

"What?"

"Dese things, heah, whar yo didn' eat, seh----"

"Do you mean--Oh, Lord!" exclaimed Croyden.

"Never mind, Moses. I will return them another way. Just forget it."

"Sut'n'y, seh," returned the darky. "Dat's what I wuz gwine do in de
fust place."

Croyden laughed. It was pretty hopeless, he saw. The ways they had,
were the ways that would hold them. He might protest, and order
otherwise, until doomsday, but it would not avail. For them, it was
sufficient if Colonel Duval permitted it, or if it were the custom.

"I think I shall let the servants manage me," he thought. "They know
the ways, down here, and, besides, it's the line of least resistance."

He went into the library, and, settling himself in a comfortable chair,
lit a cigarette.... It was the world turned upside down. Less than
twenty-four hours ago it was money and madness, bankruptcy and divorce
courts, the automobile pace--the devil's own. Now, it was quiet and
gentility, easy-living and refinement. Had he been in Hampton a little
longer, he would have added: gossip and tittle-tattle, small-mindedness
and silly vanity.

He smoked cigarette after cigarette and dreamed. He wondered what
Elaine Cavendish had done last evening--if she had dined at the
Club-house, and what gown she had worn, if she had played golf in the
afternoon, or tennis, and with whom; he wondered what she would do this
evening--wondered if she thought of him more than casually. He shook it
off for a moment. Then he wondered again: who had his old quarters at
the Heights? He knew a number who would be jumping for them--who had
his old table for breakfast? it, too, would be eagerly sought--who
would take his place on the tennis and the golf teams?--what Macloud
was doing? Fine chap was Macloud! the only man in Northumberland he
would trust, the only man in Northumberland, likely, who would care a
rap whether he came back or whether he didn't, or who would ever give
him a second thought. He wondered if Gaspard, his particular waiter,
missed him? yes, he would miss the tips, at least; yes, and the boy who
brushed his clothes and drew his bath would miss him, and his caddie,
as well. Every one whom he _paid_, would miss him....

He threw away his cigarette and sat up sharply. It was not pleasant
thinking.

An old mahogany slant-top escritoire, in the corner by the window,
caught his eye. It had a shell, inlaid in maple, i