alescent fires, and from the weakness that showed, with the grace,
in her run through the wintry woods, where he watched her till the
underbrush thickened behind her and hid her from him. Altogether his
impression was very complex, but he did not get so far even as the
realization of this, in his mental turmoil, as he turned with a deep
sigh and walked meditatively homeward through the incipient thaw.

It did not rain at night, as it seemed so likely to do, and by morning
the cloudiness of the sky had so far thinned that the sun looked mildly
through it without more than softening the frozen surface of the pond,
so that Mrs. Westangle's ice-tea (as everybody called it, by a common
inspiration, or by whatever circuitous adoption of Verrian's phrase)
came off with great success. People from other houses were there, and
they all said that they wondered how she came to have such a brilliant
idea, and they kept her there till nearly dark. Then the retarded rain
began, in a fine drizzle, and her house guests were forced homeward, but
not too soon to get a good, long rest before dressing for dinner.
She was praised for her understanding with the weather, and for her
meteorological forecast as much as for her invention in imagining such a
delightful and original thing as an ice-tea, which no one else had ever
thought of. Some of the women appealed to Verrian to say if he had
ever heard of anything like it; and they felt that Mrs. Westangle was
certainly arriving, and by no beaten track.

None of the others put it in these terms, of course; it was merely a
consensus of feeling with them, and what was more articulate was dropped
among the ironies with which Miss Macroyd more confidentially celebrated
the event. Out of hearing of the others, in slowly following them with
Verrian, she recurred to their talk. "Yes, it's only a question of money
enough for Newport, after this. She's chic now, and after a season
there she will be smart. But oh, dear! How came she to be chic? Can you
imagine?"

Verrian did not feel bound to a categorical answer, and in his private
reflections he dealt with another question. This was how far Miss
Shirley was culpable in the fraud she was letting Mrs. Westangle
practise on her innocent guests. It was a distasteful question, and he
did not find it much more agreeable when it subdivided itself into the
question of necessity on her part, and of a not very clearly realized
situation on Mrs. Westangle's. Th