ss Sutton once
out of three or three hundred times. But for all that, little Miss
Blythe was a splendid player and a master of strokes and strategy.

Nothing would have astonished her world more than to learn that little
Miss Blythe had a secret, darkly hidden quality of which she was
dreadfully ashamed. At heart she was nothing if not sentimental and
romantic. And often when she was thought to be sleeping the dreamless
sleep of the trained athlete who stores up energy for the morrow's
contest, she was sitting at the windows in her night-gown, looking at
the moon (in hers) and weaving all sorts of absurd adventures about
herself and her particular fancy of the moment.

It would be a surprise and pleasure to some men, a tragedy perhaps to
others, if they should learn that little Miss Blythe had fancied them
all at different times, almost to the boiling point, and that in her own
deeply concealed imagination Jim had rescued her from pirates and Jack
from a burning hotel, or that just as her family were selling her to a
rich widower, John had appeared on his favorite hunter and carried her
off. The truth is that little Miss Blythe had engaged in a hundred love
affairs concerning which no one but herself was the wiser.

And at twenty-three it was high time for her to marry and settle down.
First because she couldn't go on playing games and showing horses
forever, and second because she wanted to. But with whom she wanted to
marry and settle down she could not for the life of her have said.
Sometimes she thought that it would be with Mr. Blagdon. He _was_ rich
and he _was_ a widower; but wherever she went he managed to go, and he
had some of the finest horses in the world, and he wouldn't take no for
an answer. Sometimes she said to the moon:

"I'll give myself a year, and if at the end of that time I don't like
anybody better than Bob, why...." Or, in a different mood, "I'm tired of
everything I do; if he happens to ask me to-morrow I'll say yes." Or,
"I've ridden his horses, and broken his golf clubs, and borrowed his
guns (and he won't lend them to anybody else), and I suppose I've got to
pay him back." Or, "I really _do_ like him a lot," or "I really don't
like him at all."

Then there came into this young woman's life Mister Masters. And he
blushed his blush and smiled his crooked smile and looked at her when
she wasn't looking at him (and she knew that he was looking) and was
unable to say as much as "Boo" to her;