ct that
their eyes fell upon was Mr. Hugo Canning in the flesh. The second was
Cousin Willie Kerr, even more in the flesh, trotting loyally at his
side. At this precise instant, in short, the celebrated transient
quitted the dining-room for the relaxations of his evening.

The coincidence of the moment was pure: one hundred per cent, as they
say commercially. One takes it to mean that Destiny, having handled a
favorite child somewhat roughly for a time, now turned back its smiling
mother-face. The ladies Heth, having dined refinedly in their
sitting-room, descended in search of cooling breezes, or for any other
reason why. Over the spaces of the great court, half lobby, half parlor,
Miss Heth had seen the masculine apparitions an instant before they saw
her: or just in time, that is to say, to be showing them now her
flawless profile....

It is easily surmised that Miss Heth's manner in action was contained,
her habit the very reverse of forward. One seeing her now would be
cheaply cynical, indeed, to say or dream that, with reference to some
such conjuncture as the present, this girl had left a happy home many
hours before. Her presence shamed every unworthy surmise. With a lovely
unconsciousness she was spied walking her innocent ways toward the
piazza with mamma, even now girlishly unaware that an opposite and
uproarious sex was in headlong pursuit....

If this pursuit--to be doggedly literal--appeared to lag for a moment,
if it did not seem to start with that instant _elan_ which one had a
right to expect, be sure that there was a complication of sound reasons
for that. Kerr, in the circumstances, was the appointed leader of the
chase; and Kerr hesitated. Canning's desire to avoid the local society
and be left free to outdoor exercise and sleep was, in truth, only too
well known to him. And to-night, worse luck, the distinguished visitor
appeared even less socially inclined than usual: annoyed when the select
little party he had expected from northerly haunts had been found
represented at the Beach by a telegram instead; increasingly bored by
the desolate air of the all but empty hostelry. "When's the next train
out of this hell-hole?"--such was Mr. Canning's last recorded remark up
to this not uninteresting moment.

Kerr, when he saw Mrs. and Miss Heth over the distance, merely made a
genial exclamation, and then gazed. He was nearing forty, was Willie,
short and slightly bald, with an increasing appreciation o