"I felt rather uneasy when I missed you at my rooms," Sively remarked, as they were approaching the trap at the door. "Pomp could give no account of you, and I didn’t know but what you’d skipped out for home. Have a good time while I was away?" "Oh yes, yes," Chester answered, as he got into the vehicle and began to adjust the lap-robes about him. "I got along all right. You see, old man, I’m sort of getting on the social retired-list. Living in the country, where we have few formalities, has turned me somewhat against your teas, dinners, and dances. I never go without feeling out of it somehow. You Atlanta men seem to know how to combine business and society pretty well; but, having no business when I’m here, I get sick of doing the other thing exclusively." "Oh, I see," said Sively, who was too deeply versed in human nature to be misled. As they sped along the smooth asphalt pavement of Peachtree Street, dodging trolley-cars and passing or meeting open vehicles filled with pleasure-seekers, Sively’s hat and arm were in continual motion bowing to friends and acquaintances. The conversation languished. Sively found it very difficult to keep it going as he noted the deep lines of care which marked his cousin’s face. He was quite sure something of a very serious nature had happened to Langdon, and his sympathies were deeply stirred. After twenty minutes’ brisk driving, they reached the club-house and entered the throng of fashionably dressed men and women distributed about at the numerous refreshment-tables under the trees. The club was on a slight elevation, and below them stretched the beautiful greensward of the extensive Exposition grounds. Several of the liveried servants, recognizing Sively, approached and offered chairs at their respective tables, but, sensing his cousin’s desire not to be thrown with others, he led the way through the laughing and chattering assemblage to a quiet table in a little smoking-room quite in the rear of the building. "There," he smiled, "this will suit you better, I know." "Yes, I think it will, if it’s all the same to you," Chester admitted, with a breath of relief. "The Lord only knows what I’d talk about out there in that chattering gang." Sively ordered cigars, and, when the waiter had gone for them, he said, lightly: "No more liquor for you to-day, my boy. You hold your own all right, but you are too nervous to take any more." "Nervous? Do you think so? Do I look it?" Chester asked. "Oh yes, a little," said Sively. He was taking a bunch of cigars from the waiter, and, when he had signed his name to the accompanying slip of paper, he said, "Harry, pull the door to after you, and see that we are not disturbed." "Certainly, sir." Langdon, with widening eyes, watched the negro as he went out and closed the door, then he glanced at his cousin inquiringly.