The overseer came to supper that night, looking very uncomfortable in his “party clothes,” and added fifty per cent. to the gaiety of the occasion. He had a wealth of good stories which, while familiar to the others, were new to John, and told them deliciously, with many a “Gingeration!” and “By doggie, sir!” John was sensible of a quite unaccustomed feeling of exhilaration, and his high spirits plainly surprised Phillip. Mrs. Ryerson coquetted ceremoniously and impartially with both guests, while Margaret’s animation verged almost on frivolity.

“It seems to do you good to be run away with,” Phillip told her.

“It does,” she smiled. “I like it!”

“If I was some younger, Miss Margey,” cried Markham with a courtly bow, “I’d take yo’ at yo’ word! By doggie, yes, ma’am!”

“Oh, dear! I so wish you were!” Margaret sighed.

[264]

Phillip’s eyebrows went up. This was a new Margey.

But if she was all graciousness to Markham she was but calm, unadorned politeness to John North. He was never for a moment allowed to forget that she hated him. When he spoke to her the smiles disappeared and she replied in the fewest number of words consistent with courtesy. Her manner said: “You are my hated foe; but you are also my guest!”

And John throve on her displeasure and grew merrier with every proof of it.

Arrangements for the fox hunt were completed ere they left the table, and afterward they played whist before the drawing-room fire, Margaret and John against Phillip and Tom Markham. John watched Margaret’s efforts to avoid playing with him with carefully concealed amusement. In the end she defeated her own purpose.

“I’m such a frightfully poor player,” she lamented, “it would be a shame to spoil Mr. North’s pleasure by making us partners.”

“That’s just it,” cried Phillip. “You are pretty rotten, Margey, but John’s one of the crack members of the Harvard Whist Club, and so that evens it up. Come along, now.”

[265]

So Margaret accepted the inevitable and took the place opposite John, where he could look into her face every time he raised his eyes from his cards. They had foemen worthy of their trumps. Phillip was a good player, while Markham went in for whist as he went in for everything else, with a concentration and singleness of purpose that was delightful to behold and which made him a formidable antagonist. It is to be feared that Margaret purposely vindicated the reputation she had claimed. Surely, never before were so many good cards wasted, so many aces trumped, such a blind disregard of science and signals exhibited! But if her purpose was to ruffle, her partner’s temper, she won not the slightest vestige of success. John’s tranquillity remained impervious. Phillip wondered and exclaimed:

“Good heavens, Margey! What were you up to then? You’re playing fifty times worse than I ever knew you to—and that’s saying a heap!”

“Thank you, Phil, dear!”

“John will think you were raised in—in—I don’t know what—where!”

“I am very sorry,” answered Margaret very gravely, “but I warned Mr. North of what to expect.”

[266]

“Really, I think your playing is very good, Miss Ryerson,” interposed John, with equal gravity. “For my part, I am quite satisfied. And if you’re satisfied and I’m satisfied, where does Phil come in? Nowhere. Your lead, Mr. Markham.”

Now there was a bit of polite perjury that should have won the thanks and admiration of any one in Margaret’s place. Yet, for some reason, the effect on Margaret was quite the reverse of pleasing and did not soften her heart and move her to reform; on the contrary, she played worse than before and exasperated Phillip to fresh remonstrance.

“Margey! You did it again that hand!”

“Did what, Phil?”

“Why, trumped his ace!”

“Did I? Did I trump your ace, Mr. North?”

“I believe you did,” John answered calmly. “But I don’t think Phil understands your play.”

“No, hanged if I do!” muttered Phillip.

“While I do—perfectly.”

Margaret frowned suspiciously and had the grace to blush. And John saw the blush and thought it lovely and played a card that caused Tom Markham’s hands to tremble with triumph. Yet, despite all handicaps—not the least of which was his inability[267] to keep his eyes on the game—John won out at the end, and Markham drew his long length carefully from his chair and sighed enviously.

“Gingeration, Mr. No’th, sir! I just wish I could play the game the way you can. I never saw anything like it! It’s a pleasure, sir, to be defeated by you, sir! By doggie, yes, sir!”

John sat for a full half-hour in front of the fire in his bedroom, attired only in a suit of red-and-white pajamas, and smoked his pipe and watched the flames. He didn’t always see the flames, however, and his thoughts were at least the length of the house from them. He reviewed the day’s events and grew cold at recollection of that frightful and anxious race down Pine Top, and warm at the memory of what had followed. He wondered whether he had made a mistake in “showing his hand” so early in the game, and believed he hadn’t. On its face it appeared a reckless, impossible, even frivolous thing to make a declaration of love—even an off-hand one—twenty-four hours after first meeting a woman. But John found extenuating circumstances. In the first place, it had been entirely unpremeditated. In the second place, his acquaintanceship with Margaret was not limited to twenty-four[268] hours; he had known her ever since he had known Phillip. Corliss’ allusion to her had aroused his curiosity and sympathy and appealed to his imagination. He had fallen in love with her the moment he had seen her picture on Phillip’s mantel. His passion—not a very deep one then, perhaps—had been fed by their short correspondence and by the constant mention of her name and news of her doings doled out by Phillip. And then he had seen her in the flesh! And now it was all confirmed, established, irrevocable!

No, he didn’t believe he had hurt his chances by his impulsive words. He was not an expert in affairs of the heart. Had he ever felt the slightest desire to do so—which he never did—he could have counted his love affairs on the fingers of one hand and still, perhaps, have a thumb left untapped. He had never made a study of the pleasant art of making love, yet he had learned somehow that interest must precede affection, and had a strong suspicion that no woman can fail to feel interest in a man who has declared his love for her, no matter how indifferent to his passion she may be.

No; on the whole he was very well satisfied with his second day at Elaine. It did not occur to him[269] as among the possibilities that Margaret could really cherish resentment against him for what he had done. She was beautiful to him in every way, and he loved her. Then why not tell her so? It was the natural thing to do, and he had done it. To be sure, she was justified in finding fault with his method; he owned to himself that he had been rather crude, almost discourteous; and on that score she was right to show displeasure. But in the end——

He knocked the ashes from his pipe and pulled himself erect, yawning cavernously. The fire was low and little chills were sporting up and down his back. He blew out the light and crawled into the four-poster.

In the end she must love him. His college career would come to an end in June; after that should come another career in which his curriculum should be Margaret and of which the degree should be Margaret’s love. But suddenly his pleasant confidence received a shock. What if there should be—was—some one else?

He sat up and blinked in consternation at the firelight. What about that other chap, that cousin? What was his name? Willis? Who the deuce was this Willis and where did he come in? He dropped[270] his head back on the pillow. He would find out about this Nate—that was it!—Nate Willis. He would—ask Phillip—in—the morn——

Then he commenced snoring peacefully.

Sunday came and went, and Monday, and Tuesday, with untroubled skies, brisk, mellow noons and frosty nights. The ice formed hard on the little ponds and they went skating. And they shot more partridges, and rode and drove; and to John every moment was filled with pleasure. And yet his love affair progressed not at all. Strive as he might to find or beguile Margaret away from the companionship of Mrs. Ryerson or Phillip or from the mysterious duties that kept her so much of the time in that impenetrable region of the house reigned over by Aunt Cicely, he was always unsuccessful. To be sure—and here was doubtful cause for self-gratulation—Margaret’s manner toward him was what it had been of old, before she had found it necessary to hate him. But John wasn’t satisfied.

Meanwhile he had disposed of Nate Willis—or, rather, Phillip had done it for him. And no other pretender had appeared on the horizon. John found encouragement in these facts. But meanwhile, too, his stay at Elaine was already half over, for he had[271] promised David to come to him in New York the next Sunday. He sighed dolefully and for a minute entertained the wild idea of telegraphing David that he was dead and couldn’t join him. But, as he realized with a grin the next moment, that wouldn’t do, for Davy would be certain to come down to the funeral.

The fox hunt had been highly successful. That is to say, from certain viewpoints. Margaret and Phillip and the indefatigable Colonel Brownell—who looked every minute of his sixty-eight years and rode to hounds like a youngster—had been in at the death, while John, accompanied by Tom Markham, whose courtesy and hospitality would not allow him to leave the guest behind, had plodded unexcitedly along some half-mile in the rear. John’s clothes bore streaks and large expans............