It was a big room with open fires and the inevitable trophies of somebody else’s chase—the heads of big game mounted, staring at nothing out of their glass eyes; weapons of a vanished age on the oaken wainscoting, modern guns in racks as well as cues, and leather lounges and seats and wide-armed chairs everywhere. Hither Mrs. Rivett now brought her embroidery or knitting; and around her, within a radius more or less distant, the others gathered or circled in temporary orbits, and games were played and music made and youth flirted and age gossiped much as they did when she was a young girl in Mills Corners, and her husband taught in the red schoolhouse next door. Sometimes Diana came and sat beside her and knitted a tie destined, she admitted, for nobody in particular; sometimes Edgerton drew his chair beside hers and told her of student life in Paris—watching always for her delightfully timid smile, the shy laugh that she sometimes ventured, the curiously pretty flush that came at times into her cheeks, making them and the faded eyes almost beautiful. Once or twice it happened that Christine settled herself on a footstool on the other side of her mother to listen, too; and the little old lady experienced a furtive content with the situation as Edgerton and her daughter exchanged pleasantries and volleys of gay badinage across her knitting. But listen as demurely as she might, feign inattention and unconsciousness as she might, she could detect in neither her daughter nor in Edgerton any hint of a subtler understanding, any omen of anything for the future beyond a frank camaraderie and the undisguised pleasure in it. And she sighed sometimes—not understanding, not venturing even to admit to herself the desire that was beginning to establish itself in her gentle breast. As for Edgerton and Christine, they were now on terms of intimacy almost careless. With Diana he was different. The day of his bitter outbreak when riding with Diana, Edgerton, terribly ashamed of himself, had gone once more to her and admitted that her rebuke was a just one; that he was an ungrateful dog, disloyal to the hand that fed him, and not worthy of Diana’s regard. And the girl had forgiven him very sweetly, not with much enthusiasm, for his rapidly advancing intimacy with Christine had begun to perplex her, nor could she exactly understand his apparently happy acquiescence in conditions lately so irritating. Not that he neglected her; in his amiable way he was charming to her and to Silvette; was often with them; drove, rode, walked with them; and often, when the opportunity happened, met them in family conclave to discuss future prospects for business.