To show that she was not limited to her own particular set in her choice of guests, Mabel had asked Raridan, whom she wished to know better, and Wheaton, who had danced with her at the carnival ball, to be of her party. Chaperons were tolerated but not required in Clarkson. For this reason Mabel had thought it wise to ask Mrs. Whipple, whom she wished to impress; and as she liked to surprise her fellow citizens, it was worth while in this instance to yield something to the convenances. The general was too old for such nonsense; but he was willing to sacrifice his wife, and she went, giving as her excuse for taking "that Margrave girl's bait," that she was doing it in Evelyn's interest.

The coach rolled with loud yodeling to the Porter door, where there was much laughing and bantering as the guests settled into their places. When the locked wheels ground the hillside and the horn was bravely blown by an admirer of Mabel's from Keokuk, it was clear to every one that Timothy Margrave's daughter was achieving another triumph. The young man from Keokuk was zealous with the horn; a four-in-hand was not often seen in the streets of Clarkson, albeit this same vehicle was always to be had from the leading liveryman, and town and country turned admiring eyes on the party as the coach rolled along in the golden haze of early October. The sun warmed the dry air; and far across the Missouri flats its light fell mildly upon yellow bluffs where the clay was exposed in broad surfaces which held the light. The foliage of the hills beyond the river was lit with color in many places; a shower in the morning had freshened the green things of earth, giving them a new, brief lease of life, and there was no dust in the highways. In such a day the dying year bends benignantly to earth and is fain to loiter in the ways of youth.

The paint was still fresh in the club house, which was a long bungalow, set in a clump of cottonwoods. There was an amplitude of veranda, and the rooms within were roughly furnished in Texas pine. The older people of the town looked upon the club with some suspicion as something new and untried. The younger element was just beginning to know the implements and vocabulary of golf. The first tee was only a few feet from the veranda, so that a degree of heroism and Christian resignation was essential in those who began their game under the eyes of a full gallery. There were the usual members of both sexes who talked a good deal about their swing without really having any worth mentioning; and there were others more given to reading the golf news in the golf papers at the club house, than to playing, to the end that they might discuss the game volubly without the discomfort of acquiring practical knowledge.

The walls of the dining-room had not been smoothed or whitened. They were hung with prints which ranged in subject from golf to Gibson girls. Mabel had supplemented the meager furnishings of the club pantry with embellishments from her own house, and had given her own touch to the table. As her touch carried a certain style, her crystal and silver shone to good advantage under the lamps which she had substituted for the bare incandescents of the room. The young man from Keokuk who was, just then, as the gossips said, "devoted" to Mabel, had supplied a prodigal array of flowers, ordered by telegraph from Chicago for the occasion. The table was served by colored men, who had been previously subsidized by Mabel, in violation of the club rules; and they accordingly made up in zeal what they lacked in skill.

Mabel talked a great deal about informality, and drove her guests into the dining-room without any attempt at order, and they found their name-cards with the surprises and exclamations which usually characterize that proceeding.

Captain Wheelock sat at the end of the oblong table opposite Mabel, who placed the man from Keokuk at her right and Raridan at her left. Evelyn was between Raridan and one of Mabel's "men," who was evidently impressed by this propinquity. He was the Assistant General Something of one of the railroads and owned a horse that was known as far away from home as the Independence, Iowa, track. There was a great deal of talking back and forth, and Evelyn told herself that it did not much matter that her guests had fallen into rather poor hands. She was quite sure that Captain Wheelock, who liked showy girls, would not be much interested in Annie Warren, who was distinctly not showy. Belle Marshall, with her drollery, was not likely to be dismayed by Wheaton's years and poverty of small talk. Belle was not easily abashed, and when the others paused now and then under the spell of her dialect, which seemed funny when she did not mean it to be so, she was not distressed. She had grown used to having people listen to her drawl, and to complimentary speeches from "you No'the'ne's" on her charming accent. Evelyn found that it was unnecessary to talk to Raridan; he and Mabel seemed to get on very well together, and in her pique at him, Evelyn was glad to have it so.

Mabel's supper was bountiful, and Raridan, who thought he knew the possibilities of the club's cuisine, marveled at the chicken, fried in Maryland style, and at the shoestring potatoes and flaky rolls, which marked an advance on anything that the club kitchen had produced before. There was champagne from the stock which the Margraves carried in their car, and it foamed and bubbled in the Venetian glasses that Mabel had brought from home, at a temperature that Mabel herself had regulated. Captain Wheelock made much of frequently lifting his glass to Mabel in imaginary toasts. The man from Keokuk drank his champagne with awe; he had heard that Mabel Margrave was a "tank," and he thought this a delightful thing to be said of a girl. Mrs. Whipple noted with wonder Mabel's capacity, while most of the others tried not to be conscious of it. Mabel grew a little boisterous at times through the dinner, but no one dared think that it was the champagne. Mrs. Whipple remembered with satisfaction that she had no son to marry Mabel. There were, she considered, certain things which one escapes by being childless, and a bibulous daughter-in-law was one of them.

Attention was arrested for a time by a colloquy between Mrs. Whipple and Captain Wheelock as to the merits of army girls compared with their civilian sisters; and the whole table gave heed. Wheelock maintained that the army girl was the only cosmopolitan type of American girl, and Mrs. Whipple combated the idea. She took the ground that American girls are never provincial; that they all wear the same clothes, though, she admitted, they wore them with a difference; and that the army girl as a distinct type was a myth.

"My furniture," she said, "has followed the flag as much as anybody's; but the army girl is only a superstition among fledgling lieutenants. On my street are people from Maine, Indiana and Georgia. You don't have to go to the army to find cosmopolitan young women; they are the first generation after the founders of all this western country. Right here in the Missouri valley are the real Americans, made by the mingling of elements from everywhere. Am I stepping on anybody's toes?" she asked, looking around suddenly.

"Oh, don't mind us," drawled Belle, turning with a mournful air to Annie.

"We've counting on you to marry and settle amongst us," said Mrs. Whipple palliatingly.

"Gentlemen!" exclaimed Raridan, looking significantly from one man to another; "destiny is pointing to us!"

"You're in no danger, Mr. Raridan," Belle flung back at him. "Miss Warren and I can go back where we came from."

Raridan's rage at Evelyn had spent itself; he was ready for peace. She had been politely indifferent to him at the table, to the mischievous joy of Belle Marshall, who had an eye for such little bits of comedy. As they all stood about after supper in the outer hall, Evelyn chatted with Wheaton, and continued to be oblivious of Raridan, who watched her over the shoulder of one of Mabel's particular allies and waited for a tÊte-À-tÊte. Warry had the skill of long practice in such matters; there were men whom it was difficult to dislodge, but Wheaton was not one of them. He took advantage of a movement toward benches and chairs to attach himself to Evelyn and to shunt Wheaton into Belle's company,—a manoeuver which that young woman understood perfectly and did not enjoy. There was something so open and casual in Warry's tactics that the beholder was likely to be misled by them. Evelyn was half disposed to thwart him; he had been distinctly disagreeable at the ball, and had not appeared at the house since. She knew what he wanted, and she had no intention of making his approaches easy. Some of the others moved toward the verandas, and Warry led the way thither, while he talked on, telling some bits of news about a common acquaintance from whom he had just heard. It was cool outside and she sent him for her cape, and then they walked the length of the long promenade. He paused several times to point out to her some of the improvements which were to be made in the grounds the following spring. This also was a part of the game; it served to interrupt the walk; and he spoke of the guests at the Hill, and said that it was too bad they had not come when things were livelier. Then he stood silent for a moment, busy with his cigarette. Evelyn gathered her golf cape about her, leaned against a pillar and tapped the floor with her shoe.

"You haven't been particularly attentive to them, have you?" she said. "I thought you really liked them."

"Of course I like them, but I've been very busy." Warry stared ahead of him across the dim starlit golf grounds.

"That's very nice," she said, still tapping the floor and looking past him into the night. "Industry is always an excuse for any one. But, come to think of it, you were very good in showing them about at the ball. I appreciate it, I'm sure."

It was of his conduct at the ball that he wished to speak; she knew it, and tried to make it hard for him.

"See here, Evelyn, you know well enough why I kept away from you that night. I told you before the ball that I didn't,—well, I didn't like it! If I hadn't cared a whole lot it wouldn't have made any difference—but that show was so tawdry and hideous—"

Evelyn readjusted her cape and sat down on the veranda railing.

"Oh, I was tawdry, was I?" she asked, sweetly. "I knew some one would tell me the real truth about it if I waited."

"I didn't come here to have you make fun of me," he said, bitterly. He imagined that since the ball he had been suffering a kind of martyrdom.

Evelyn could not help laughing.

"Poor Warry!" she exclaimed in mock sympathy. "What a hard time you make yourself have! Just listen to Mr. Foster laughing on the other side of the porch; it must be much cheerfuller over there." Mr. Foster was the young man from Keokuk; he wore a secret society pin in his cravat, and Warry hated him particularly.

"What an ass that fellow is!" he blurted, savagely. He had just lighted a fresh cigarette, and threw away the stump of the discarded one with an unnecessary exercise of strength.

"But he's cheerful, and has very nice manners!" said Evelyn. Warry was still looking away from her petulantly. Her attitude toward him just now was that of an older sister toward a young offending brother. He felt that the interview lacked dignity on his side, and he swung around suddenly.

"You know we can't go on this way. You know I wouldn't offend you for anything in the world,—that if I've been churlish it's simply because I care a great deal; because it has hurt me to find you getting mixed up with the wrong people. If you knew what your coming home meant to me, how much I've been counting on it! and then to find that you wouldn't meet me on our old friendly basis, and didn't want any suggestions from me."

He had, almost unconsciously, been expecting her to interrupt him; but she did not do so, and left him to flounder along as best he could. When he paused helplessly, she said, still like a forbearing sister:

"I didn't know you could be so tragic, Warry. The first thing I know you'll be really quarreling with me, and I don't intend to have that. Why don't you change your tactics and be a good little boy? You've been spoiled by too much indulgence of late. Now I don't intend to spoil you a bit. You were terribly rude,—I didn't think you capable of it, and all because I wouldn't offend my father and his friends and other very good people, by refusing to take part in the harmless exercises of that perfectly ridiculous but useful society, the Knights of Midas. That's all over now; and the sun comes up every morning just as it used to. You and I live in the same small town and it's too small to quarrel in."

She paused and laughed, seeing how he was swaying between the impulse to accept her truce and the inclination to parley further. He had been persuading himself that he loved her, and he had found keen joy in the misery into which he had worked himself, thinking that there was something ideal and noble in his attitude. He did not know Evelyn as well as he thought he did; when she came home he had imagined that all would go smoothly between them; he had meant to monopolize her, and to dictate to her when need be. He had assumed that they would meet on a plane that would be accessible to no other man in Clarkson; and his conceit was shaken to find that she was disposed to be generously hospitable toward all. It was this that enraged him particularly against Wheaton, who stood quite as well with her, he assured himself, as he did. Her beauty and sweetness seemed to mock him; if he did not love her now as he thought he did, he at least was deeply appreciative of the qualities which set her apart from other women.

There are men like Raridan, who are devoid of evil impulse, and who are swayed and touched by the charm of women through an excess in themselves of that nicer feeling which we call feminine, usually in depreciation, as if it were contemptible. But there is something appealing and fine about it; it is not altogether a weakness; doers of the world's worthiest tasks have been notable possessors of this quality. Raridan had a true sense of personal honor, and yet his imagination was strong enough to play tricks with his conscience. He had argued himself into a mood of desperate love; he felt that he was swayed by passion; but it was of jealousy and not of love.

Evelyn walked a little way toward the door and he followed gloomily along. He called her name and she paused. They were not alone on the veranda, and she did not want a scene. Raridan began again:

"Why, ever since we were children together I've looked forward to this time. It always seemed the most natural thing in the world that I should love you. When you went away to college, I never had any fear that it would make any difference; when I saw you down there you were always kind,—"

"Of course I was kind," she interrupted; "and I don't mean to be anything else now."

"You know what I mean," he urged, though he did not know himself what he meant. "I had no idea that your going away would make any difference; if I had dreamed of it, I should have spoken long ago. And when I went to see you those few times at college—"

"Yes, you came and I was awfully glad to see you, too; but how many women's colleges have you visited in these four years? There was that Brooklyn girl you were devoted to at Bryn Mawr; and that pretty little French Canadian you rushed at Wellesley,—but of course I don't pretend to know the whole catalogue of them. That was all perfectly proper, you understand; I'm not complaining—"

"No; I wish you were," he said, bitterly. If he had known it, he was really enjoying this; there was, perhaps, at the bottom of his heart, a little vanity which these reminiscences appealed to. He rallied now:

"But you could afford to have me see other girls," he said. "You ought to know—you should have known all the time that you were the only one in all the world for me."

"That's a trifle obvious, Warry;" and she laughed. "You're not living up to your reputation for subtlety of approach."

"Evelyn"—his voice trembled; he was sure now that he was very much in love; "I tried to tell you before the carnival that the reason I didn't want you to appear in the ball was that I cared a great deal,—so very much,—that I love you!"

She stepped back, drawing the cape together at her throat.

"Please, Warry," she said pleadingly, "don't spoil everything by talking of such things. I wished that we might be the best of friends, but you insist on spoiling everything."

"Oh, I know," he broke in, "that I spoil things, that I'm a failure—a ne'er-do-well." It was not love that he was hungry for half so much as sympathy; they are often identical in such natures as his.

She bent toward him, as she always did when she talked earnestly, and as frankly as though she were speaking to a girl.

"Warry Raridan, it's exactly as I told you a moment ago. You've been spoiled, and it shows in a lot of ways. Why, you're positively childish!" She laughed softly. He had thrust his hands into his pockets and was feeling foolish. He wanted to make another effort to maintain his position as a serious lover, but was not equal to it. She went on, with growing kindness in her tone: "Now, I'll say to you frankly that I didn't at all like being mixed up in the Knights of Midas ball; if you had been as wise as I have always thought, you might have known it. You ought to have shown your interest in me by helping me; but you chose to take a very ungenerous and unkind attitude about it; you helped to make it harder for me than it might have been. I relied on you as an old friend, but you deserted me at your first chance to show that you really had my interests at heart. If you had cared about me, you certainly wouldn't have acted so."

"Why, Evelyn, I wouldn't hurt you for anything in the world; if I had understood—"

"But that's the trouble," she interrupted, still very patiently. She saw that she had struck the right chord in appealing to his chivalry, and in conceding as much as she had by the reference to their old comradeship. She had never liked him better than she did now; but she certainly did not love him.

She had directed the talk safely into tranquil channels, and he was growing happier, and, if he had known it, relieved besides. He wanted to be nearer to her than any one else, and he was touched by her declaration that she had needed him, and that he had failed her.

"But sometime—you will not forget—"

"Oh, sometime! we are not going to bother about that now. Just at present it's getting too cool for the open air and we must go inside."

"But is it all right? You will pardon my offenses, won't you? And you won't let any one else—"

"Oh, you must be careful, and very good," she answered lightly, and gathered up her skirts in her hand. "We must go in, and," she looked down at him, laughing, "there must be a smile on the face of the tiger!"

A fire of piÑon logs, brought from the Colorado hills, blazed in the wide fireplace at the end of the hall, and Evelyn and Warry joined the circle which had formed about it.

"Has the moon gone down?" asked Captain Wheelock, as a place was made for them.

"Not necessarily," said Raridan coolly. "Anybody but you would know that the moon isn't due yet."

"It was getting cool outside," said Evelyn, finding a seat in the ingle-nook.

"Oh!" exclaimed the captain significantly, and looking hard at Raridan. "Poor Mr. Raridan! The weather bureau has hardly reported a single frost thus far, and yet—and yet!" The others laughed, and Evelyn looked at him reproachfully.

"You might try the weather conditions yourself," said Raridan easily, wishing to draw the fire to himself. "But at your age a man must be careful of the night air."

He and Wheelock abused each other until the others begged them to desist; then some one attacked the piano and a few couples began to dance. Mabel was anxious to stimulate the interest of the young man from Keokuk, who had not thus far manifested sufficient courage to lead her off for a tÊte-À-tÊte. He had proved a little slow, and she sought to treat him cruelly by seeming very much interested in Raridan, who sat down to talk to her. Warry was certainly much more distinguished than any other young man in Clarkson,—a conclusion which was, in her mind, based on the fact that Warry lived without labor. The pilgrim from Keokuk was the vice-president of an elevator company, and it seemed to her much nobler to live on the income of property that had been acquired by one's ancestors than to be immediately concerned in earning a livelihood. She and Warry took several turns about the hall to the waltz which Belle Marshall was playing, and when the music ceased suddenly they were in a far corner of the room. The chain on which her heart-pendant hung caught on a button of Raridan's coat as they stopped, and he took off his glasses to find and loosen the tangle, while she stood in a kind of triumphant embarrassment, knowing that Evelyn could see them from her corner by the fire. After the chain had been freed she led the way to the window seat and sat down with a great show of fatigue from her dance.

"A girl that wears her heart on a chain is likely to have daws pecking at it, isn't she?" suggested Raridan, wiping his glasses, and looking at her with the vagueness of near-sighted eyes. This was, he knew, somewhat flirtatious; but he could no more help saying such things to young women than he could help his good looks. The fact that he had a few moments before been making love to another girl, with what he believed at the time to be real ardor, did not deter him. Mabel was a girl, and therefore pretty speeches were to be made to her. She was unmistakably handsome, and a handsome girl, in particular, deserves a man's tribute of admiration. Mabel was not, however, used to Raridan's methods; the men she had known best did not paraphrase Shakspere to her. But it was very agreeable to be sitting thus with the most eligible and brilliant young man of Clarkson. Evelyn Porter, she could see, was entertaining the young man from Keokuk, and the situation pleased her.

"Oh, the chain is strong enough to hold it," she answered, running the slight strands through her fingers, and looking up archly. Her black eyes were fine; she exercised a kind of witchery with them.

"Lucky chap—the victim inside," continued Raridan, indicating the heart.

"Well, that depends on the way you look at it."

"I hope he knows," continued Warry. "It would be a shame for a man to enjoy that kind of distinction and not know it."

Mabel held the silver heart in one hand and stroked it carefully with the other. Most of the men she knew would be capable of taking the heart, even at the cost of a scuffle, and looking into it. She felt safe with Raridan. The young romantic actor whose picture enjoyed the distinction of a place in the trinket did not know, of course, and would have been bored if he had.

"It would hardly be fair to carry his picture around if he didn't know it, would it?" asked Mabel.

"Of course not," said Warry; "I didn't imagine that you bought it!"

"It wouldn't be nice for you to," said Mabel. The fact that she had acquired it for twenty-five cents at a local bookstore did not trouble her.

The music had begun again, but they continued talking, though others were dancing. Wheaton had joined Evelyn in the ingle-nook; and Evelyn was aware, without looking, that Mabel was making the most of her opportunity with Raridan; and she knew, too, that he was not averse to a bit of by-play with her. She knew that if she really cared for him it would hurt her to see him thus talking to another girl, but she was conscious of no pang. Her heart burned with anger for a moment at the thought that he must think her conquest assured; but this was, she remembered, "Warry's way," falling back on a phrase that was often spoken of him. She was a little tired, and experienced a feeling of relief in sitting here with Wheaton and listening to his commonplace talk, which could be followed without effort.

Wheaton was finding himself much at ease at Mabel's party, though he questioned its propriety; he had a great respect for conventions. He was well aware that there were differences between Evelyn Porter and her friends, and Miss Margrave and those whom he knew to be her intimates. Miss Porter was much finer in her instincts and her intelligence; he would have been puzzled for an explanation of the points of variance, but he knew that they existed. The young man from Keokuk had moved away and left him with Evelyn, and it was certainly very pleasant to be sitting in a quiet corner with a girl whom everybody admired, and who was, he felt sure, easily the most distinguished girl in town. He had arrived late, to be sure, in the first social circle of Clarkson, but he had found the gate open, and he was suffered to enter and make himself at home just as thoroughly as any other man might—as completely so, for instance, as Warrick Raridan, who had wealth and the prestige of an old family behind him.

"I'm sure we shall all get much pleasure out of the Country Club," said Evelyn, who sat on the low bench between him and the fire.

"Yes, and the house is pretty good, considering the small amount of money that was put into it."

"Another case where good taste is better than money. We Americans have been so slow about such things; but now there seems to be widespread interest in outdoor life." Wheaton knew only vaguely that there was, but he was learning that it was not necessary to know much about things to be able to talk of them; so he acquiesced, and they fell to discussing golf, or at least Evelyn did, with the zeal of the fresh convert.

"I think I'll have to take it up. You make it sound very attractive."

"The Scotch owed us something good," said Evelyn; "they gave us oatmeal for breakfast, and made life unendurable to that extent. But we can forgive them if they take us out of doors and get us away from offices and houses. Our western business men are incorrigible, though. The farther west you go, the more hours a day men put into business."

Evelyn soon sent Wheaton to bring Mrs. Whipple and Annie Warren, who were stranded in a corner, and they became spectators of the pranks of some of the others, who had now gathered about the piano, where Captain Wheelock had undertaken to lead in the singing of popular airs. The singers were not taking their efforts very seriously. All knew some of the words of "Annie Carroll," but none knew all, so that their efforts were marked by scattering good-will rather than by unanimity of knowledge. When one lost the words and broke down, they all laughed in derision. Mabel and Raridan had joined the circle, and Warry entered into the tentative singing with the spirit he always brought to any occasion. Mabel, who imported all the new songs from New York, gave "Don't Throw Snowballs at the Soda-water Man" as a solo, and did it well—almost too well. Occasionally one of the group at the piano turned to demand that those who lingered by the fireside join in the singing, but Wheaton was shy of this hilarity, and was comfortable in his belief that Evelyn was showing a preference for him in electing to remain aloof. He did not understand that her evident preference was due to a feeling that he was older than the rest and too stiff and formal for their frivolity.

Mrs. Whipple made little effort to talk to Wheaton, though she occasionally threw out some comment on the singers to Evelyn. Wheaton did not amuse Mrs. Whipple. He had only lately dawned on her horizon, and she had already appraised him and filed her impression away in her memory. He was not, she had determined, a complex character; she knew, as perfectly as if he had made a full confession of himself to her, his new ambitions, his increasing conceit and belief in himself. She had been more successful in preventing marriages than in effecting them, and she sat watching him with a quizzical expression in her eyes; for there might be danger in him for this girl, though it had not appeared. But when her eyes rested on Evelyn she seemed to find an answer that allayed her fears; Evelyn was hardly a girl that would need guardianship. As the noise from the group at the piano rose to the crescendo at which it broke into laughing discord, Evelyn met suddenly the gaze with which this old friend had been regarding her, and gave back a nod and smile that were in themselves unconsciously reassuring.

Some one suggested presently that if they were to drive home in the moonlight they should be going; and the coach soon swung away from the door into the moon's floodtide. The wind was still, as if in awe of the lighted world. The town lay far below in a white pool. Mabel again took the reins, and as the coach rumbled and crunched over the road, light hearts had recourse to song; but even the singing was subdued, and the trumpeter's note failed miserably when the horses' hoofs struck smartly on the streets of the town.