its place in the corner, opened a
trap-door in the floor and, lamp in hand, went down into the cabin's
cellar. Here was a long pine box, hooped with tin bands for shipping,
its lid securely nailed on. He set down his lamp and with shirt-sleeve
wiped off some of the accumulation of dust and spider-web. A card with
the words, "David Burrill Lee, Rocky Bend," tacked to it made its
appearance. Lee shook his head and attacked the lid.

"It's like digging out a dead man," he muttered. "Well, we'll bury him
again to-morrow."

It was a box of odds and ends. Clothing, a few books, a pack of
photographs, an ornate bridle, a pair of gold-chased spurs, a couple of
hats, gloves, no end of the varied articles which might have gone
hastily into such a receptacle as this from the hurried packing in a
bachelor's apartments.

Bud Lee, with a dress-suit and the articles it demands, even to tie and
dancing-shoes, went back into the room above.

"Like Hampton," he mused, looking at the things in his hands, "I wonder
what it'll feel like to get back into these! I'm a fool." He laughed
shortly and set to work to improvise a flat-iron to take the worst
wrinkles out of the cloth. "Once a fool, always a fool. You can't get
away from it."

It was settled. He was going to Marcia's party. He insisted upon
calling it in his mind, "Marcia's party." And he was wondering, as he
shaved, how Judith was going to look.

XVIII

JUDITH TRIUMPHANT

As Bud Lee came through the lilacs into the courtyard, he heard the
tinkle of a distant piano and the tremolo of a violin, so faint as
hardly to be distinguished above the plash and gurgle of the fountains.
The court, bathed in soft light, seemed a corner of fairyland, the
music vanishing elfin strains of some mischievous troop putting sighs
and love dreams into a sleeping maid's breast. The night was rich with
stars, warm with summer, serene with the peace of the mountains. He
was late. They were already dancing within.

He stood a moment, looking in at the outer edge of the flood of light
which gushed through the wide doors. Behind him Japanese lanterns
hanging from a vine-covered trellis; before him flowers, bright
chandeliers, girls' dresses like fluttering, many-colored, diaphanous
butterfly wings. He had been saying to himself: "I must hurry if I
want to dance with Marcia." And something stirring restlessly within
him shoved aside the thought of Marcia and put in its stead