So they came to Lenox; Lenox of the sleepy hills, and sweet wild roads, and shady green seclusion. Here were the first good roads they had seen since they left Mrs. Gower’s home; and Van Kull “let out” the horses, and they galloped like a summer storm. And the gayety seemed redoubled since Mrs. Malgam’s arrival. Lord Birmingham was evidently drinking her in like some new sort of wine; Derwent alone was silent and abstracted. So they were none of them sorry when he told them that he, too, must leave at Lenox. In the evening, he got a long walk with Arthur, and spoke most bitterly about them all. “As for Mrs. Hay,” he said, “she’s hardly worth considering; she only injures men, and men who are her mates. But Mrs. Gower is a woman who has successively sought and successively attained, or appeared to attain, every height, every good thing, and every great place in turn, in order that she might vulgarize it. She has mounted every summit but to make it hers. Do you see how Mrs. Malgam, and Miss Duval, and all the others ape her?” Arthur thought him very ill-bred and rude to this most charming hostess, and almost dared to say so. Derwent pulled out his brierwood pipe, and they walked on in silence. “Now,” the other went on, “take another sort of girl--a girl like your friend Miss Holyoke, for instance----” “I don’t see what Miss Holyoke has to do with the case,” said Arthur, goading himself into a passion. And the walk ended--purposely, so far as Arthur was concerned--in a sort of quarrel. Coming back, he found Mrs. Malgam walking in the lawn of Mrs. Gower’s cottage, and joined her, and found solace after the Englishman’s asperity. Mrs. Malgam was dressed in a faultless summer gown, and wore the famous pearls that she had bought with the estate of her first husband. Arthur revenged himself by repeating to her all Derwent’s conversation. “I am glad he’s going,” said she. “He’s the most cynical person I ever met; and I hate cynicism.” “Who’s that you’re talking of?” said Wemyss, coming up. “Derwent,” said Arthur. “We’re both glad he’s going.” “Oh, Derwent is quite impossible,” said Wemyss. “He’s well enough at a dinner where they feed the lions, but quite out of his place in society. The fellow’s a crank, too; just the sort of a man who ends by marrying a woman of the demi-monde.” “By way of reformation, I suppose,” laughed Mrs. Malgam. Arthur walked with her some time, as Wemyss left upon this last _bon mot_; and the next day, when they came together after breakfast, there was no trace of Derwent. “Do you know he’s a friend of Chinese Gordon?” said Lord Birmingham. “I should think, quite possible,” said Wemyss. “I hope we’ll get a better fellow in his place--a gentleman, at least,” he added, _sotto voce_. “They say he belongs to one of the oldest families in Northumberland, do you know,” said Mrs. Hay. “All rot,” said Wemyss; “I believe him to be a mere adventurer--nothing more.”