ht of--of Randy, in khaki on the
station platform; Randy, lean and tall among the boarders; Randy, left
behind with Kemp in the rain; Randy, debonair and insolent, announcing
his engagement on the terrace at Hamilton Hill; Randy, a shadow against
a silver sky, answering Becky's call; Randy, in the dark by the
fountain, with muscles like iron, forcing him inevitably back, lifting
him above the basin, letting him drop----; Randy, the Conqueror,
marching away with Becky's fan as his trophy----!

New York was, of course, at this season of the year, a pageant of
sparkling crowds, and of brilliant window displays, of new productions
at the theaters. People were coming back to town. Even the fashionable
folk were running down to taste the elixir of the early days in the
metropolis.

But George found everything flat and stale. He did the things he had
always done, hunted up the friends he had always known. He spent
week-ends at various country places, and came always back to town with
an undiminished sense of his need of Becky, and his need of revenge on
Randy.

He had heard before he left Virginia that Becky was at Nantucket. He had
found some consolation in the fact that she was not at Huntersfield. To
have thought of her with Randy in the old garden, on Pavilion Hill, in
the Bird Room, would have been unbearable.

He had a feeling that, in a sense, Madge's marriage was a desertion. He
did not in the least want to marry her, but there were moments when he
needed her friendship very much. He needed it now. And she was going to
marry Major Prime, and go out to some God-forsaken place, and get fat
and lose her beauty. He wished that she would not talk about such
things--it made him feel old, and worried about his waist-line.

Even Oscar was failing him. "When Flora gets well," the little man kept
telling him, "we are going to do some good with our money. We have done
nothing but think of ourselves----"

"Oh, for Heaven's sake, don't preach," George exploded. It seemed to him
that the world had gone mad on the subject of reforms. Man was no longer
master of his fate. The time would come when the world would be a dry
desert, without a cocktail or a highball for a thirsty soul, and all
because a lot of people had been feeling for some time as Flora and
Oscar felt at this moment.

"I shall take Flora up to the Crossing in a few days," Oscar was
saying; "the doctor thinks the sea air will do her good. I wish you
would come w