got up and limped to the porch rail. "I thought she was as
poor as----"

"The rest of us? Well, she isn't."

It appeared that Becky's fortune came from the Nantucket grandmother,
and that there would be more when the Admiral died. It was really a very
large fortune, well invested, and yielding an amazing income. One of the
clauses of the grandmother's will had to do with the bringing up of
Becky. Until she was of age she was to be kept as much as possible away
from the distractions and temptations of modern luxury. The Judge and
the Admiral had agreed that nothing could be better. The result, Randy
said, was that nobody ever thought of Becky Bannister as rich.

"Yet those pearls that she wears are worth more than I ever expect to
earn."

"It is rather like a fairy tale. The beggar-maid becomes a queen."

"You can see now why I can't offer her just youth and a fighting
spirit."

"I wonder if Dalton knows."

"I don't believe he does," Randy said slowly. "I give him credit for
that."

"He might have heard----"

"I doubt it. He hasn't mingled much, you know."

"It will be rather a joke on him----"

"To find that he has married--Mademoiselle Midas?"

"To find that she is Mademoiselle Midas, whether he marries her or not."

V

Of course Georgie-Porgie ran away. It was the inevitable climax. Flora's
illness hastened things a bit.

"She wants to see her New York doctors," Waterman had said. "I think we
shall close the house, and join Madge later at the Crossing."

George felt an unexpected sense of shock. The game must end, yet he
wanted it to go on. The cards were in his hands, and he was not quite
ready to turn the trick.

"When do we go?" he asked Oscar.

"In a couple of days if we can manage it. Flora is getting worried about
herself. She thinks it is her heart."

George rode all of that afternoon with Becky. But not a word did he say
about his departure. He never spoiled a thing like this with "Good-bye."
Back at Waterman's, Kemp was packing trunks. In forty-eight hours there
would be the folding of tents, and Hamilton Hill would be deserted. It
added a pensiveness to his manner that made him more than ever charming.
It rained on the way home, and it seemed to him significant that his
first ride and his last with Becky should have been in the rain.

He stayed to dinner, and afterwards he and Becky walked together in the
fragrance of the wet garden. A new moon hung low for a while and was
then