Hortense; but I had spoken one true thought in intimating that I doubted

if it was due to the influence of Miss Rieppe. It seemed to me to the
highest degree unlikely that the boy in his present state of feeling

would do anything he did not wish to do because his ladylove happened to
wish it--except marry her! There was apparently no doubt that he would do

that. Did she want him, poverty and all? Was she, even now, with eyes
open, deliberatelytaking her last farewell days of automobiles and of

steam yachts? That voice of hers, that rich summons, with its quiet
certainty of power, sounded in my memory. "John," she had called to him

from the automobile; and thus John had gone away in it, wedged in among
Charley and the fat cushions and all the money and glass eyes. And now he

had resigned from the Custom House! Yes, that was, whatever it signified,
truly amazing--if true.

So I continued to ponder quite uselessly, until the up-country bride
aroused me. She, it appeared, had been greatly carried away by the beauty

of Live Oaks, and was making her David take her there again this morning;
and she was asking me didn't I hope we shouldn't get stuck? The people

had got stuck yesterday, three whole hours, right on a bank in the river;
and wasn't it a sin and a shame to run a boat with ever so many

passengers aground? By the doctrine of chances, I informed her, we had
every right to hope for better luck to-day; and, with the assurance of

how much my felicity was increased by the prospect of having her and
David as company during the expedition, I betook myself meanwhile to my

own affairs, which meant chiefly a call at the Exchange to inquire for
Eliza La Heu, and a visit to the post-office before starting upon a

several hours' absence.
A few steps from our front door I came upon John Mayrant, and saw at once

too plainly that no ease had come to his spirit during the hours since
the bridge. He was just emerging from an adjacent house.

"And have you resigned?" I asked him.
"Yes. That's done. You haven't seen Miss Rieppe this morning?"

"Why, she's surely not boarding with Mrs. Trevise?"
"No; stopping here with her old friend, Mrs. Cornerly. He indicated the

door he had come from. "Of course, you wouldn't be likely to see her
pass!" And with that he was gone

That he was greatly stirred up by something there could be no doubt;
never before had I seen him so abrupt; it seemed clear that anger had

taken the place of despondency, or whatever had been his previous mood;
and by the time I reached the post-office I had already imagined and

dismissed the absurd theory that John was jealous of Charley, had
resigned from the Custom House as a first step toward breaking his

engagement, and had rung Mrs. Cornerly's bell at this early hour with the
purpose of informing his lady-love that all was over between them.

Jealousy would not be likely to produce this set of manifestations in
young, foolish John; and I may say here at once, what I somewhat later

learned, that the boy had come with precisely the opposite purpose,
namely, to repeat and reenforce his steadfastconstancy, and that it was

something far removed from jealousy which had spurred him to this.
I found the girl behind the counter at her post, grateful to me for

coming to ask how she was after the shock of yesterday, but unwilling to
speak of it at all; all which she expressed by her charming manner, and

by the other subjects she chose for conversation, and especially by the
way in which she held out her hand when I took my leave.

Near the post-office I was hailed by Beverly Rodgers, who proclaimed to
me at once a comic but genuinedistress. He had already walked, he said

(and it was but half-past nine o'clock, as he bitterly bade me observe on
the church dial), more miles in search of a drink than his unarithmetical

brain had the skill to compute. And he confounded such a town heartily;
he should return as soon as possible to Charley's yacht, where there was

civilization, and where he had spent the night. During his search he had
at length come to a door of promising appearance, and gone in there, and

they had explained to him that it was a dispensary. A beastly
arrangement. What was the name of the razor-back hog they said had

invented it? And what did you do for a drink in this confounded
water-hole?

He would find it no water-hole, I told him; but there were methods which
a stranger upon his first morning could scarce be expected to grasp. "I

could direct you to a Dutchman," I said, "but you're too well dressed to
win his confidence at once."

"Well, old man," began Beverly, "I don't speak Dutch, but give me a crack
at the confidence."

However, he renounced the project upon learning what a Dutchman was.
Since my hours were no longer dedicated to establishing the presence of

royal blood in my veins I had spent them upon various local
investigations of a character far more entertaining and akin to my taste.

It was in truth quite likely that Beverly could in a very few moments,
with his smile and his manner, find his way to any Dutchman's heart; he

had that divine gift of winning over to him quickly all sorts and
conditions of men; and my account of the ingenious and law-baffling

contrivances, which you found at these little grocery shops, at once
roused his curiosity to make a trial; but he decided that the club was

better, if less picturesque. And he told me that all the men of the
automobile party had received from John Mayrant cards of invitation to

the club.
"Your fire-eater is a civil chap," said Beverly. "And by the way, do you

happen to know," here he pulled from his pocket a letter and consulted
its address, "Mrs. Weguelin St. Michael?"

I was delighted that he brought an introduction to this lady; Hortense
Rieppe could not open for him any of those haughty doors; and I wished

not only that Beverly (since he was just the man to appreciate it and
understand it) should see the fine flower of Kings Port, but also that

the fine flower of Kings Port should see him; the best blood of the South
could not possibly turn out anything better than Beverly Rodgers, and it

was horrible and humiliating to think of the other Northern specimens of
men whom Hortense had imported with her. I was here suddenly reminded

that the young woman was a guest of the Cornerlys, the people who swept
their garden, the people whom Eliza La Heu at the Exchange did not

"know"; and at this the remark of Mrs. Gregory St. Michael, when I had
walked with her and Mrs. Weguelin, took on an added lustre of

significance:--
"We shall have to call."

Call on the Cornerlys! Would they do that? Were they ready to stand by
their John to that tune? A hotel would be nothing; you could call on

anybody at a hotel, if you had to; but here would be a demarche indeed!
Yet, nevertheless, I felt quite certain that, if Hortense, though the

Cornerlys' guest, was also the guaranteed fiancee of John Mayrant, the
old ladies would come up to the scratch, hate and loathe it as they

might, and undoubtedly would: they could be trusted to do the right
thing.

I told Beverly how glad I was that he would meet Mrs. Weguelin St.
Michael. "The rest of your party, my friend," I said, "are not very

likely to." And I generalized to him briefly upon the town of Kings Port.
"Supposing I take you to call upon Mrs. St. Michael when I come back this

afternoon?" I suggested.
Beverly thought it over, and then shook his head. "Wouldn't do, old man.

If these people are particular and know, as you say they do, hadn't I
better leave the letter with my card, and then wait till she sends some

word?"
He was right, as he always was, unerringly. Consorting with all the

Charleys, and the Bohms, and the Cohns, and the Kitties hadn't taken the
fine edge from Beverly's good inheritance and good bringing up; his

instinct had survived his scruples, making of him an agile and charming
cynic, whom you could trust to see the right thing always, and never do

it unless it was absolutely necessary; he would marry any amount of
Kitties for their money, and always know that beside his mother and

sisters they were as dirt; and he would see to it that his children took
after their father, went to school in England for a good accent and

enunciation, as he had done, went to college in America for the sake of
belonging in their own country, as he had done, and married as many

fortunes, and had as few divorces, as possible.
"Who was that girl on the bridge?" he now inquired as we reached the

steps of the post-office; and when I had told him again, because he had
asked me about Eliza La Heu at the time, "She's the real thing," he