?GABRIEL, dear,” said the Honorable Ophelia Gusset, looking up at her fiancé from the blue shadows of her parasol, “you are very dull to-day; I hope I am not boring you too utterly.”

The man standing by the garden-chair looked down at the face that belied somewhat in its aggressive stare the mild method of the girl’s reproof.

“You are charming, and I—I am gauche.”

“But why?”

“These functions always make me melancholy. I begin moralizing the moment I am one of a crowd, an egotistical habit of mine. Please ignore my cynicism.”

“Cynicism, indeed!”

“Well, you see, dear, this sort of affair is such a revulsion. When one has been elemental for an hour or two, these social inanities rather try one’s patience. I detest turning myself into a species of orthodox dummy, wound up to spout commonplaces to equally commonplace people. Laugh me out of it with those eyes of yours.”

The girl’s mood was not all for peace on the instant. Where a woman does not understand, she waxes querulous, especially if the enigma touches her heart.

“You might be sympathetic enough to realize that you no longer have only your own morbid humors to consider.”

“Pardon me, I am selfish.”

“So early?”

“You shall reform me.”

Ophelia flashed a queer look at him from her strangely magnetic eyes. A sudden quick spasm of passion seemed to pass through both frames. The electric sentiment met—and sparked desire. Gabriel colored under his straw hat.

“You have wonderful eyes.”

“Have I? Well—”

“I suppose we cannot help it.”

“What does it matter?”

The man sighed.

“It will not be long,” he said.

“And yet—”

She laughed—a deep quaver of passion.

“I am much of an Eve,” she said. “If you have any pity, do get me an ice.”

Mrs. Mince had prepared a garden-party at the Saltire vicarage, a cosmopolitan affair that effectually repaid the neighborhood for courtesies accorded during the year. It was one of those thoroughly inane and tiresome functions where every individual seemed intent on covering his or her identity with a facile and vapid mask. People smiled upon one another with a suspicious reserve and insulted one another’s immortality with that effete social patois that distinguishes such gatherings. Women “my deared” plentifully and dissected one another’s toilets. Men looked bored and bunched together in corners to talk with a vicious and morose earnestness. It was a mock festival in the name of pleasure, where the local culture displayed its rites for the edification of the young.

“You should go out and get to know people,” ran John Strong’s favorite dogma to his son. “Mix in society; it will give you ease, my boy, and gentlemanly fluency in conversation.” Unfortunately ideas did not bloom under the Saltire bonnets, and the higher culture was not to be culled from the tents of propriety.

Mrs. Marjoy and Miss Zinia Snodley were partnering each other under the shade of Mr. Mince’s walnut-tree. The doctor’s wife was dressed in damask red, with a dowdy black hat perched ungracefully on her crisp, black hair. Her gloves were grease-stained and her unbrushed jacket bore a generous covering of dust and discarded hair. Mrs. Marjoy always declared that really handsome women could wear anything, and that style was a personal magnetism, and not the result of milliner’s craft. Mrs. Marjoy lived up to the ideal with admirable sincerity. It cannot be said that in the matter of personal proof she converted others. Mrs. Marjoy’s art was crude and elemental; her friends designated it with the title of slovenliness. They even whispered that Mrs. Marjoy might so far sink her convictions as to manicure her nails.

Four ladies were amusing themselves at croquet on a neighboring lawn, and the voices of tennis-players came from the vicarage meadow. The tea-table had attracted quite a crowd of votaries, and Mr. Mince, with his parsonic leer, was running about with dishes of cake and fruit. “He is such a charming man!” to quote Miss Snodley. The day found Mrs. Marjoy in one of her fervid moods. The doctor had been playing croquet with pretty Mrs. Grandison, a dainty, warm-hearted creature, the wife of an artist who had taken a cottage near Saltire for the summer. And Mrs. Marjoy hated all pretty women, not through any realization of inferiority, but with the zest of a being who believed herself entitled to the Juno’s share of popular devotion. Mrs. Marjoy was a woman who never looked in any other mirror save that of confident egotism. At that very moment she was in the midst of a candid critique, while her husband was smiling over his teacup into Mrs. Grandison’s gentle, blue eyes.

“Don’t you think that woman shockingly overdressed, Zinia?” she said. “That is the worst of being an inferior person; a woman like that has to rely wholly on her costumier. London people are so abominably self-confident. That chit there might really have come from behind a bar.”

“These affairs are always so mixed!” said Miss Snodley, with a simper.

“Poor, dear Mrs. Mince, she always will ask everybody. I believe in lady-like selections. Look at her talking to Miss Ginge; she detests that girl, but that shows what a thorough woman of the world she is. We Christian ladies, my dear Zinia, have to suffer our social inferiors with cultured resignation. I never hurt anybody’s feelings. It is really an effort at times to be charitable and to do justice to one’s neighbors. But that is the essence of Christianity, my dear. Hallo, there’s young Strong and his mistress.”

Ophelia, with Gabriel at her side, moved across the lawn in the direction of the rose-walk. The girl was superbly dressed and indubitably lovely. She moved with her usual complacent hauteur, the semi-languid and physical egotism that betrayed her fibre. Gabriel appeared melancholy. They were both of them silent.

“Young Strong looks bored.”

“Poor fellow!”

“No good can come of such a scandalous intrigue,” said the doctor’s wife. “It’s nothing more, my dear Zinia. They are going to live at The Friary. Nice dance that woman’ll lead him. Serve the prig right. She’s all vanity and lace.”

“Perhaps they will be happy,” said Miss Snodley, with a sigh.

“I believe marriage improves many women, and then—children. They must make such a difference to a woman.”

Mrs. Marjoy twitched her shoulders.

“Don’t be sentimental, Zinia. I always try to eliminate my own prejudices, but that Gusset girl is a regular harpy. Did you ever see a really good woman dress like that? Ah, here’s James; my dear, you look bored.”

The doctor tilted his Panama hat and smiled somewhat apologetically at his wife.

“That awful dowdy has been exhausting you with her chatter.”

“Mrs. Grandison?”

“Of course.”

“Mrs. Grandison is really a charming little woman,” observed the doctor. “We have been talking about children; she has two such quaint little elves, and she adores them. They have not been spoiled.”

Mrs. Marjoy sniffed; her spectacles glittered.

“You are always admiring other people’s children, James.”

“Yes, my dear.”

“Are you aware of the fact that I have had no tea?”

The doctor displayed immediate concern.

“I will get you some at once.”

“Don’t trouble; it’s of no consequence.”

“But Miss Snodley—”

“Of course you will be delighted to wait on Miss Snodley. Bring us one of those small tables. I’m not going to have crumbs all over my dress.”

Later in the afternoon, Gabriel, who had left Ophelia chatting with Sir Mark Melluish, an amusing old ragamuffin who reminded one of a walking edition of Punch, unearthed Dr. Marjoy from a pool of millinery and engaged him with a casual friendliness in a thoroughly orthodox gossip. The doctor knew most folk in the neighborhood; for bad debts had made him vig............