Mrs. Prettyman, unvisited by Mrs. Gervase for many months after the red-brown gables of her costly dwelling rose into prominence at Sheepshead Point, had gradually found her way into quasi-intimacy at Stoneacres. Mrs. Gervase, protesting that her neighbor was commonplace, vacuous, a being from whom one could derive nothing more profitable than the address of a place in town to have one's lace lampshades made a dollar cheaper than elsewhere, allowed herself, in time, to take a mild but perceptible interest in Prettyman affairs. Through force of habit, she had grown accustomed to survey the Prettyman lodge-gates, in driving, without remarking upon "the absurdity of gilded finials to iron railings, at a rough, seaside place like this." Nay, the noses of the Gervase cobs were now not infrequently turned in through these gilded railings. Mr. and Mrs. Gervase dined periodically with the Prettymans. The Prettymans repaired more frequently to Stoneacres. Mrs. Prettyman made capital, in town, of her friendship with "dear Mrs. Gervase." This, Grove, like the rest of the world, had come gradually to know and accept. But it grated on him to hear that the woman who, so far, had furnished his life its chief feminine influence should be associated in this way with the mistress of Château Calicot. It belittled his one passion--now put away as dead, but still his own. This, indeed, set the crowning touch upon his misfortune of meeting her again. Chapter III "My dear boy, you might have knocked me down with a feather," said Mrs. Gervase, upon capturing her nephew at the wharf and driving away with him. "Tell me at once what you mean by knowing Gladys Eliot, and arriving with her in that intimate sort of way, just as I had, with infinite trouble, succeeded in bluffing the Prettymans with a mere dinner on Saturday! Now you will be _having_ to call. _You_, of all people, hitting it off with Gladys Eliot!" "Give yourself no concern," put in Mr. Gervase, who was driving, looking back over his shoulder with a beaming smile; "I offer to throw myself into the breach. A woman as beautiful, as tall, as placid, as Miss Eliot commands the best homage of my heart. I forewarn you that I am going desperately into this affair. Such luck never came my way before." "Stop at the confectioner's for the macaroons, Henry," said his wife, ignoring transports. "Alan, you are looking wretched. When I think of those ruddy, brown cheeks, and the look of vigor you brought out of your college athletics a few years back, I'm inclined to renounce mind and go in for muscle exclusively. Oh, that wretched grind of life in New York that crushes the youth and spirit out of you poor boys that have to toil for a living! Surely, it isn't _only_ law that's worked such havoc in those pale, thin cheeks--" "My dear Agatha, your sympathy would put a well man in his bed," said Mr. Gervase, whose keen eyes took in more of the actual situation than did his wife's.