Before my wife and I left for an outing on the seaboard, news came from that quarter about Gertrude and Albert. Intelligence even reached us, through the same correspondent, regarding Mrs. Johnny McComas. Mrs. Johnny, with her three children, was frequenting the same sands and the same board walk. It was possible to imagine the arrangement as having been suggested by Raymond's one-time wife. See it for yourself. Mrs. Raymond and Mrs. Johnny slowly promenading back and forth together, or seated side by side beneath their respective parasols or under some gay awning shared in common, while their authentic children played about them. What if people—whether friends, acquaintances, or strangers—did say, "She is divorced"? There she was, with her own son plainly beside her and her closest woman friend giving her complete countenance. If a separation, who to blame? The husband, doubtless. In fact, there was already springing up in her Eastern circle, I was to find, the tradition of a dour, stiff man, years too old, with whom it was impossible to live.

It is unlikely that Gertrude, at any time—even at this time—would have been willing to rank Mrs. Johnny as her closest friend. But Mrs. Johnny had spoken a good word for her in a trying season, and at the present juncture her friendly presence was invaluable. She could speak a good word now—she was, so to say, a continuing witness. The two, I presume, were seen together a good deal, along with the children, especially Albert; and Mrs. Johnny, coÖperating (if unconsciously) with Gertrude's mother, did much to stabilize a somewhat uncertain situation.

It was the understanding that Mrs. Johnny was in rather poor health this summer; the birth of her little daughter had left her a different woman, and the tonic of the sea-air was needed to remake her into her high-colored and energetic self. There was nothing especially reviving in the Wisconsin lakes, to which (placid inland ponds) they had confined their previous summer sojourns: and the vogue of the fresher resorts farther north on the greater lakes had not yet reached them. This year let the salt surf roll and the salt winds blow.

My wife and I, in our Eastern peregrinations, passed a few days at the particular beach frequented by the two mothers. We really found in Mrs. Johnny's aspect and carriage some justification for the incredible legend of her poor health. She walked with less vigor than formerly and was glad to sit down more frequently; and once or twice we saw her taking the air at her bedroom window instead of on the broad walk before the shops. Her boys played robustly on the sands, and would play with Albert—or rather, let him play with them—if urged to. But, like most twins, they were self-sufficing; besides, they were several years older. To produce the full effect of team-work between the families required some perseverance and a bit of manoeuvring. The little girl was hardly two.

Gertrude and her mother welcomed us rather emphatically—too emphatically, we felt. The latter offered us politic lunches in the large dining-room of their hotel, and laid great stress upon our provenance when we met her friends on the promenade. We seemed to be becoming a part of a general plan of campaign—pawns on the board. This shortened our stay.

The day before we left, Johnny McComas himself appeared. He had found a way to leave his widely ramifying interests for a few odd hours. A man of the right temperament gains greatly by a temporary estival transplantation; and if Johnny always contrived to seem dominant and prosperous at home, he now seemed lordly and triumphant abroad. He "dressed the part": he was almost as over-appropriately inappropriate as little Albert himself. He played ostentatiously with his boys on the sands, and did not mind Albert as one of their eye-drawing party. He, whether his wife did or no, responded fully and immediately to the salt waves and the salt winds.

"Immense! isn't it?" he said to me, throwing out his chest to the breeze and teetering in his white shoes, out of sheer abundance of vitality, on the planks beneath him.

There was only one drawback: his wife was really not well. And he wondered audibly to me, while my own wife was having a few words near by with Gertrude, how it was that a young woman could, within the first year of her married life, bear twins with no hurt or harm, and yet weaken, later, through the birth of a single child.

"She doesn't seem at all lively, that's a fact," he said, with a possible touch of impatience. "But another two weeks will do wonders for her," he added: "she'll go back all right."

Prepotent Johnny! No doubt it was a drain on vitality to live abreast of such a man, to keep step with his robustious stride.

On the forenoon of the day we left, Johnny was walking with Gertrude and her mother along the accepted promenade. His excess of vitality and of action gave him an air of gallantry not altogether pleasing to see. His wife sat at her window, looking down and waving her hand rather languidly. The Johnny of her belief had come, in part, assuredly, for a bit of enjoyment. She smiled unconcernedly.