't they? Is your underwear purple, too?"

Amory grunted impolitely.

"You must go to Brooks' and get some really nice suits. Oh, we'll have a
talk to-night or perhaps to-morrow night. I want to tell you about
your heart--you've probably been neglecting your heart--and you don't
_know_."

Amory thought how superficial was the recent overlay of his own
generation. Aside from a minute shyness, he felt that the old cynical
kinship with his mother had not been one bit broken. Yet for the first
few days he wandered about the gardens and along the shore in a state
of superloneliness, finding a lethargic content in smoking "Bull" at the
garage with one of the chauffeurs.

The sixty acres of the estate were dotted with old and new summer houses
and many fountains and white benches that came suddenly into sight from
foliage-hung hiding-places; there was a great and constantly increasing
family of white cats that prowled the many flower-beds and were
silhouetted suddenly at night against the darkening trees. It was on
one of the shadowy paths that Beatrice at last captured Amory, after Mr.
Blaine had, as usual, retired for the evening to his private library.
After reproving him for avoiding her, she took him for a long
tete-a-tete in the moonlight. He could not reconcile himself to her
beauty, that was mother to his own, the exquisite neck and shoulders,
the grace of a fortunate woman of thirty.

"Amory, dear," she crooned softly, "I had such a strange, weird time
after I left you."

"Did you, Beatrice?"

"When I had my last breakdown"--she spoke of it as a sturdy, gallant
feat.

"The doctors told me"--her voice sang on a confidential note--"that if
any man alive had done the consistent drinking that I have, he would
have been physically _shattered_, my dear, and in his _grave_--long in
his grave."

Amory winced, and wondered how this would have sounded to Froggy Parker.

"Yes," continued Beatrice tragically, "I had dreams--wonderful visions."
She pressed the palms of her hands into her eyes. "I saw bronze rivers
lapping marble shores, and great birds that soared through the air,
parti-colored birds with iridescent plumage. I heard strange music and
the flare of barbaric trumpets--what?"

Amory had snickered.

"What, Amory?"

"I said go on, Beatrice."

"That was all--it merely recurred and recurred--gardens that flaunted
coloring against which this would be quite dull, moons that whirled and
swayed, paler than