There was the sound of wheels and horses--many wheels and many horses. He looked down the drive--one after another came into view a three-seated buckboard, a stylish omnibus, a waggon with the seats taken out to make room for a huge pile of luggage. In the buckboard and the omnibus he recognised men and women whom he had met in New York--the Leightons, the Spencers, the Farrells, the Howards, Mrs. Carnarvon, Wallingford, Gresham, Browne, a man whose name he could not recall, Miss Lester, Miss Devenant. “I thought Catherine and I were to be ‘very quiet,’” he muttered. There were thirty-two people at dinner that night, sixteen of whom, including himself, were guests in the house for stays of three days, a week, ten days. “You said you were to be alone,” he said to Catherine, with ironic reproach. She gave him her pathetic, helpless look. “I did hope so. But I asked some, and mamma asked others, and the rest asked themselves.” The days passed, and he had only fleeting glimpses of her. Everybody was hunting, riding, driving, going to luncheons, teas, dinners, through a neighbourhood ten miles square. Every moment from early until late was more than occupied--it was crowded, jammed. His idea of country life was the quiet, lazy ease of England; a week of this rushing about fagged him, body and mind. He ceased to try for a moment alone with her; he saw that it was hopeless to expect so much in a place where he could not get a moment alone with himself. “You never rest in this country?” he said, addressing the men in the library at midnight, as they were having a final nightcap. “Why should we?” replied Browne. “Why anticipate the grave’s only pleasure?” “You see,” explained Wallingford, “on this side of the water we take our pleasures energetically. When we work, we work hard; when we play, we play hard. If we’re having a good time, we crowd our luck, in the hope of having a better time. If we’re bored, we hurry, to get it over with.” “Do you keep this up the year round?” “Except on ocean steamers. But we’ll close that gap when we get the ‘wireless’ installed, with a telephone to the head of every berth.” VI On a Monday morning--Frothingham’s eighth day at Lake-in-the-wood--only Wallingford and the tireless Catherine appeared for the early ride. “It’s cold,” said Wallingford. “Shall we canter?” And they swept through the gates and on over the frost-spangled meadows for several miles before they drew their horses in to a walk. Catherine’s cheeks were glowing, and her eyes were not dreamy and soulful, but bright with vigorous, wide-awake life. “I haven’t seen you looking so well in years, Kitty.” Wallingford was examining her with the slightly mocking, indifferent eyes that had piqued not a few women into trying to make him like them. “You look positively human. And it’s becoming--most becoming.” Catherine began to scramble into her pose. She did not like to be caught lapsing from her ideals.