r's party.
Lotless dampened Monty's spirits by relentlessly putting him on rigid
diet, with most discouraging restrictions upon his conduct. The period
of convalescence was to be an exceedingly trying one for the invalid.
At first he was kept in-doors, and the hours were whiled away by
playing cards. But Monty considered "bridge" the "pons asinorum," and
preferred to play piquet with Peggy. It was one of these games that the
girl interrupted with a question that had troubled her for many days.
"Monty," she said, and she found it much more difficult than when she
had rehearsed the scene in the silence of her walks; "I've heard a
rumor that Miss Drew and her mother have taken rooms at the hotel.
Wouldn't it be pleasanter to have them here?"

A heavy gloom settled upon Brewster's face, and the girl's heart
dropped like lead. She had puzzled over the estrangement, and wondered
if by any effort of her own things could be set right. At times she had
had flashing hopes that it did not mean as much to Monty as she had
thought. But down underneath, the fear that he was unhappy seemed the
only certain thing in life. She felt that she must make sure. And
together with the very human desire to know the worst, was the
puritanical impulse to bring it about.

"You forget that this is the last place they would care to invade." And
in Brewster's face Peggy seemed to read that for her martyrdom was the
only wear. Bravely she put it on.

"Monty, I forget nothing that I really know. But this is a case in
which you are quite wrong. Where is your sporting blood? You have never
fought a losing fight before, and you can't do it now. You have lost
your nerve, Monty. Don't you see that this is the time for an
aggressive campaign?" Somehow she was not saying things at all as she
had planned to say them. And his gloom weighed heavily upon her. "You
don't mind, do you, Monty," she added, more softly, "this sort of thing
from me? I know I ought not to interfere, but I've known you so long.
And I hate to see things twisted by a very little mistake."

But Monty did mind enormously. He had no desire to talk about the thing
anyway, and Peggy's anxiety to marry him off seemed a bit unnecessary.
Manifestly her own interest in him was of the coldest. From out of the
gloom he looked at her somewhat sullenly. For the moment she was
thinking only of his pain, and her face said nothing.

"Peggy," he exclaimed, finally, resenting the necessity of answering