.
Below in the ball-room sat Miss Trevor surrounded by men, and I saw her
face lighting at the Celebrity's approach.

"Who is that beautiful girl he is dancing with?" said Miss Thorn.

I told her.

"Have you read his books?" she asked, after a pause.

"Some of them."

"So have I."

The Celebrity was not mentioned again that evening.

CHAPTER VI

As an endeavor to unite Mohair and Asquith the cotillon had proved a
dismal failure. They were as the clay and the brass. The next morning
Asquith was split into factions and rent by civil strife, and the porch
of the inn was covered by little knots of women, all trying to talk at
once; their faces told an ominous tale. Not a man was to be seen. The
Minneapolis, St. Paul, and Chicago papers, all of which had previously
contained elaborate illustrated accounts of Mr. Cooke's palatial park
and residence, came out that morning bristling with headlines about
the ball, incidentally holding up the residents of a quiet and retiring
little community in a light that scandalized them beyond measure. And
Mr. Charles Wrexell Allen, treasurer of the widely known Miles Standish
Bicycle Company, was said to have led the cotillon in a manner that left
nothing to be desired.

So it was this gentleman whom the Celebrity was personating! A queer
whim indeed.

After that, I doubt if the court of Charles the Second was regarded
by the Puritans with a greater abhorrence than was Mohair by the
good ladies of Asquith. Mr. Cooke and his ten friends were branded as
profligates whose very scarlet coats bore witness that they were of the
devil. Mr. Cooke himself, who particularly savored of brimstone, would
much better have remained behind the arras, for he was denounced with
such energy and bitterness that those who might have attempted his
defence were silent, and their very silence told against them. Mr. Cooke
had indeed outdone himself in hospitality. He had posted punch-bowls in
every available corner, and so industriously did he devote himself to
the duties of host, as he conceived them, that as many as four of the
patriarchs of Asquith and pillars of the church had returned home more
or less insensible, while others were quite incoherent. The odds being
overwhelming, the master of Mohair had at length fallen a victim to his
own good cheer. He took post with Judge Short at the foot of the
stair, where, in spite of the protests of the Celebrity and of other
well-disposed persons, t