the present rottenness of smart society? Why, when kings by the name of

George sat on the throne of England, society was just as drunken, just as
dissolute! Then a decent queen came, and society behaved itself; and now,

here we come round again to the Georges, only with the name changed!
There's nothing final. So, when things are as you don't like them,

remember that and bear them; and when they're as you do like them,
remember it and make the most of them--and keep a good sleeve handy!"

"Have you got any creed at all?" he demanded.
"Certanly; but I don't live up to it."

"That's not expected. May I ask what it is?"
"It's in Latin."

"Well, I can probably bear it. Aunt Eliza had a classical tutor for me."
I always relish a chance to recite my favorite poet, and I began

accordingly:--
"Laetus in praesens animus quod ultra est

Oderit curare et--"
"I know that one!" he exclaimed, interrupting me. "The tutor made me put

it into English verse. I had the severest sort of a time. I ran away from
it twice to a deer-hunt." And he, in his turn, recited:--

"Who hails each present hour with zest
Hates fretting what may be the rest,

Makes bitter sweet with lazy jest;
Naught is in every portion blest."

I complimented him, in spite of my slight annoyance at being deprived by
him of the chance to declaim Latin poetry, which is an exercise that I

approve and enjoy; but of course, to go on with it, after he had
intervened with his translation, would have been flat.

"You have written good English, and very close to the Latin, too," I told
him, "particularly in the last line." And I picked up from the bridge

which we were crossing, an oyster-shell, and sent it skimming over the
smooth water that stretched between the low shores, wide, blue, and

vacant.
"I suppose you wonder why we call this the 'New Bridge,'" he remarked.

"I did wonder when I first came," I replied.
He smiled. "You're getting used to us!"

This long structure wore, in truth, no appearance of yesterday. It was
newer than the "New Bridge" which it had replaced some fifteen years ago,

and which for forty years had borne the same title. Spanning the broad
river upon a legion of piles, this woodencauseway lies low against the

face of the water, joining the town with a serene and pensive country of
pines and live oaks and level opens, where glimpses of cabin and

plantation serve to increase the silence and the soft, mysterious
loneliness. Into this the road from the bridge goes straight and among

the purple vagueness gently dissolves away.
We watched a slow, deep-laden boat sliding down toward the draw, across

which we made our way, and drew near the further end of the bridge. The
straight avenue of the road in front of us took my eyes down its quiet

vista, until they were fixed suddenly by an alien object, a growing dot,
accompanied by dust, whence came the small, distorted honks of an

automobile. These fat, importunate sounds redoubled as the machine rushed
toward the bridge, growing up to its full staring, brazen dimensions. Six

or seven figures sat in it, all of the same dusty, shrouded likeness,
their big glass eyes and their masked mouths suggesting some fabled,

unearthly race, a family of replete and bilious ogres; so that as they
flew honking by us I called out to John:--

"Behold the yellow rich!" and then remembered that his Hortense probably
sat among them.

The honks redoubled, and we turned to see that the drawbridge had no
thought of waiting for them. We also saw a bewildered curly white dog and

a young girl, who called despairingly to him as he disappeared beneath
the automobile. The engine of murder could not, as is usual, proceed upon

its way, honking, for the drawbridge was visibly swinging open to admit
the passage of the boat. When John and I had run back near enough to

become ourselves a part of the incident, the white dog lay still behind
the stationary automobile, whose passengers were craning their muffled

necks and glass eyes to see what they had done, while one of their number
had got out, and was stooping to examine if the machine had sustained any

injuries. The young girl, with a face of anguish, was calling the dog's
name as she hastened toward him, and her voice aroused him: he lifted his

head, got on his legs, and walked over to her, which action on his part
brought from the automobile a penetrating female voice:--

"Well, he's in better luck than that Savannah dog!"
But General was not in luck. He lay quietly down at the feet of his

mistress and we soon knew that life had passed from his faithful body.
The first stroke of grief, dealt her in such cruel and sudden form,

overbore the poor girl's pride and reserve; she made no attempt to
remember or heed surroundings, but kneeling and placing her arms about

the neck of her dead servant, she spoke piteously aloud:--
"And I raised him, I raised him from a puppy!"

The female voice, at this, addressed the traveller who was examining the
automobile: "Charley, a five or a ten spot is what her feelings need."

The obedient and munificent Charley straightened up from his stooping
among the mechanical entrails, dexterously produced money, and advanced

with the selected bill held out politely" target="_blank" title="ad.温和地；文雅地">politely in his hand, while the glass
eyes and the masks peered down at the performance. Eliza La Heu had

perceived none of this, for she was intent upon General; nor had John
Mayrant, who had approached her with the purpose of coming to her aid.

But when Charley, quite at hand, began to speak words which were
instantly obliterated from my memory by what happened, the young girl

realized his intention and straightened stiffly, while John, with the
rapidity of light, snatched the extended bill from Charley's hand, and

tearing it in four pieces, threw it in his face.
A foreign voice cackled from the automobile: "Oh la la! il a du panache!"

But Charley now disclosed himself to be a true man of the world--the
financial world--by picking the pieces out of the mud; and, while he

wiped them and enclosed them in his handkerchief and with perfect dignity
returned them to his pocket, he remarked simply, with a shrug: "As you

please." His accent also was ever so little foreign--that New York
downtown foreign, of the second generation, which stamps so, many of our

bankers.
The female now leaned from her seat, and with the tone of setting the

whole thing right, explained : "We had no idea it was a lady."
"Doubtless you're not accustomed to their appearance," said John to

Charley.
I don't know what Charley would have done about this; for while the

completely foreign voice was delightedly whispering, "Toujours le
panache!" a new, deep, and altogetherdifferent female voice exclaimed:--

"Why, John, it's you!"
So that was Hortense, then! That rich and quiet utterance was hers, a

schooled and studiedmanagement of speech. I found myself surprised, and
I knew directly why; that word of one of the old ladles, "I consider that

she looks like a steel wasp," had implanted in me some definite antici-
pations to which the voice certainly did not correspond. How fervently I

desired that she would lift her thick veil, while John, with hat in hand,
was greeting her, and being presented to her companions! Why she had not

spoken to John sooner was of course a recondite question, and beyond my
power to determine with merely the given situation to guide me. Hadn't

she recognized him before? Had her thick veil, and his position, and the
general slight flurry of the misadventure, intercepted recognition until

she heard his voice when he addressed Charley. Or had she known her
lover at once, and rapidly decided that the moment was an unpropitious

one for a first meeting after absence, and that she would pass on to
Kings Port unrevealed, but then had found this plan become impossible

through the collision between Charley and John? It was not until certain
incidents of the days following brought Miss Rieppe's nature a good deal

further home to me, that a third interpretation of her delay in speaking
to John dawned upon my mind; that I was also made aware how a woman's

understanding of the words "Steel wasp," when applied by her to one of
her own sex, may differ widely from a man's understanding of them; and

that Miss Rieppe, through her thick veil, saw from her seat in the
automobile something which my own unencumbered vision had by no means

detected.
But now, here on the bridge, even her outward appearance was as shrouded