perfectly ruthless about the names she would scratch off the
lists her secretary was continually making out and revising for her.

I heard her say that she wouldn't have dreamed of asking the Pitchleys,
if they hadn't "got hold of" Mohunsleigh; and that Cora Pitchley,
whatever else she might be, was the cleverest woman in Newport, to have
scooped in all the honours. Though to this day I can't see exactly what
she meant, for she never would explain.

Anyhow, whatever the superlatively clever thing was that Mrs. Pitchley
had done, there was no longer a question of her being kept out from the
Pink Ball, or anything else. People were charming to her, and we met
Mrs. Van der Windt herself at the Chateau at a luncheon party with a
vaudeville entertainment afterwards, and also at a dinner. Mrs. Van der
Windt seemed to like my cousin, Mohunsleigh, very much, too, and gave a
moonlight motor car picnic especially for him, with only a few people
asked besides ourselves, and the Pitchleys and Tom Doremus.

Mohunsleigh had not expected to stay more than a few days; but when he
found that the friend he wanted to visit in California was detained in
New York on business, and Mrs. Pitchley and everybody urged him very
much to stop, he decided that he would. I didn't suppose that
Mohunsleigh would care for frivolities, after all the years he has
spent tramping about in strange countries, killing things; but he
appeared to be perfectly happy and nothing bored him, so long as the
Pitchleys were there.

When Mrs. Ess Kay was making out the list of invitations for the great
Blow Out, as Potter called it, Mohunsleigh happened to stroll over to
The Moorings alone. He came to tell us that he had made up his mind to
stay, and why.

"You see," he exclaimed, "I hadn't an invitation for any special time,
from Harborough. It was a sort of standing thing, given when we met in
Damascus last winter. I was to come when I could, and be always
welcome; that sort of thing, don't you know. I cabled the day I sailed,
and didn't get any answer, but I hadn't been in New York two hours when
I'm blessed if the beggar didn't walk in on me at the Waldorf. Jolly
glad to see me, and all that, but had to hang on in New York for a bit,
on some business or other. Now he thinks he can't get off for a
fortnight or so, and as what he's got on isn't my sort of racket, I
might as well be here as anywhere else, perhaps a little better."

"What Harborough is your frien