know all about it. But the thing that I am
always asking myself is, were you born to it, Dalton?"

"I've been around a lot," Dalton evaded. "Of course if you don't want me
to be perfectly frank with you, I won't."

"Be as frank as you please," Oscar had said, "but it's your air of
knowing everything that gets me."

Dalton's breakfast was a hearty one--bacon and two eggs, and a pile of
buttered toast. There had been a melon to begin with, and there was a
pot of coffee. He was eating with an appetite when Madge came down.

"I had mine in bed," Madge said, as George rose and pulled out a chair
for her. "Isn't this the beastliest fashion, having little tables?"

"That's what I told Oscar."

"Oscar and Flora will never have too much of restaurants. They belong to
the class which finds all that it wants in a jazz band and scrambled
eggs at Jack's at one o'clock in the morning. Georgie, in my next
incarnation, I hope there won't be any dansants or night frolics. I'd
like a May-pole in the sunshine and a lot of plump and rosy women and
bluff and hearty men for my friends--with a fine old farmhouse and
myself in the dairy making butter----"

George smiled at her. "I should have fancied you an Egyptian princess,
with twin serpents above your forehead instead of that turban."

"Heavens, no. I want no ardours and no Anthonys. Tell me about the new
little girl, Georgie."

"How do you know there is a--new little girl?"

"I know your tricks and your manners, and the way you managed to meet
her at the Horse Show. And you saw her last night."

"How do you know?"

"By the light in your eyes."

"Do I show it like that? Well, she's rather--not to be talked about,
Madge----"

She was not in the least affronted. "So that's it? You always begin that
way--putting them on a pedestal---- If you'd only keep one of us there
it might do you good."

"Which one--you?" he leaned a little forward.

"No." Indignation stirred within her. How easy it was for him to play
the game. And last night she had lain long awake, listening for the
sound of his motor. She had seen the moon set, and spectral dawn steal
into the garden. "No, I'm running away. I am tired of drifting always on
the tides of other people's inclination. We have stayed down here where
it is hot because Oscar and Flora like it, yet there's all the coolness
of the North Shore waiting for us----"

She rose and walked to the edge of the terrace. The garden was splashed
now