eceived, I
at least made an effort to spend my money upon a worthy object."

They glared into one another's eyes; old friends now thoroughly
aroused against each other. They might be sarcastic or out-spoken;
but their self-respect, their good-breeding, would not permit them to
become vituperative, to lose themselves in outbursts of wrath--though
such might have been the healthier course. They knew how to plug the
volcano. So for a space, though they quivered, they were silent.

Mrs. De Peyster it was who first spoke. Her voice had recovered its
most formal, frigid tone.

"Please recall, Judge Harvey, that you are here at the present moment
not as a friend but as my man of affairs."

"All right," he said grimly. "But at least I've told you what I
thought as a friend."

"As my man of affairs," she continued with her magnificent iciness,
"you may now tell me what you have been able to do for me about a
cottage in Newport."

"Very well, here goes as your man of affairs: You said you wished to
be in Newport from the middle of July to early in September."

"Yes."

"The house, of those available, which I thought would come nearest
suiting you is 'The Heron's Nest.'"

"You mean the cottage Mrs. Van der Grift had last season?"

"The same."

"You need not describe it then. I know it perfectly. It is exactly
what I desire; elegant, but not showy. And the terms?"

"Ten thousand for the season."

"Quite satisfactory. I hope you have taken a lease."

"I have an option till to-morrow."

"Then close it. I suppose you have brought my letters of credit?"

"That," said he in formal lawyer tone, "brings me back to the news
which, as your man of affairs, I was trying to break to you when you
thought, as a friend, I was trying to propose."

"What news?"

"You will recall that the money with which I was to buy your letters
of credit was money which I was to draw for you, to-day, as dividends
on the stock you hold in the New York and New England Railroad."

"Certainly--though I do not see the drift of your remarks."

"And I hardly need remind you that the bulk of your fortune is
invested in this railroad."

"A perfectly good stock, I believe," Mrs. De Peyster commented.

"Perfectly good--perfectly sound," Judge Harvey agreed. "But there has
existed a certain possibility in the company's affairs for some time
of which I hesitated to inform you. I did not wish to give you any
unnecessary concern, which would have bee