her
hand gaily, then turned to the brilliant room.

Elizabeth met her at the threshold. "What has sent Beatriz out in this
weather?" she asked.

"Why, you see,"--Marcia answered with a little backward gesture to the
figures on the slope,--"since this is Stuart Foster's first visit to the
villa, he must be personally conducted through the park."

"She tried her best to discourage him. They were standing at the side
entrance when I came through the dining-room. She warned him first
impressions were everything and that it would be blowing a gale at the
observatory; besides, if Frederic was waiting, she would not be
responsible."

"But, 'come what will, what may'"--and meeting her sister's look, Marcia's
eyes gathered brilliancy--"the man must have his hour."

"That is what he told her. He said the syndicate had had his time and
brains, he might as well add his soul, for three months steady, and now he
was entitled to his hour. I wonder--" Elizabeth's even voice wavered--"Do
you think she will refuse him?"

"I haven't a doubt." And Marcia crossed to the dressing-table and began to
remove the shell pins from her glossy black hair.

"She seemed so changed," pursued Elizabeth following. "So, well, anxious,
depressed, and you know how gay she was at the time the _Aquila_ came. And
I happened to be near them when we started up-stairs. It was plain she was
glad to see him. But he gave her a package that had been forwarded from
Vivian Court. There was a letter; it may have been from Lucky Banks."

Marcia was silent. She lifted her brush and swept it the length of her
unbound hair.

"If it was," resumed Elizabeth, "if he has experimented far enough and
wants to forfeit that bonus, I am going to buy that piece of Wenatchee
desert myself. The Novelty mills will pay me enough for my tide lands."

"No, Elizabeth. You will hold on to your tide lands, every foot." Mrs.
Feversham paused to watch her sister's eyes capitulate under the batteries
of her own, then said: "But you need not worry; Frederic will probably
take that option off Lucky Banks' hands. Now, please do my puffs; high,
you know, so as to use the paradise aigrette."

Foster, too, had felt the change in Mrs. Weatherbee's mood since he left
her at the foot of the staircase; the exhilaration that had been so
spontaneous then, that had seemed to expand to take him in, was now so
manifestly forced. And presently it came over him she was making
conversation, saying al