So Thurley dragged the summer through, wondering why Dan had ceased to write to her, imploring her to return to the Corners or permit him to visit her in New York. In the true sense Thurley was glad Dan had not written, although no woman can ever quite forgive a man whose interest in her ceases. She was piqued, on her mettle to sing her best and disprove Hobart’s flowery vision, as she had told herself it was, to sing so well and live so flippantly that she could say to him with truth, when he returned, “Your vision is impractical,” and when a certain multi-millionaire, a chewing-gum king he was, to make it the more humorous, made love to Thurley and plied her with attentions, Thurley did not hesitate to flirt with him publicly until Sunday newspapers, despite the war, devoted a page of pictures and lurid writing with repeated exclamations about “the young _diva_ whose vow never to marry has not kept her from being soul mate to the chewing-gum king!” The chewing-gum king was boresome after a little; horse-racing, good wine, pretty women without brains, clothes trees upon which to display his wealth, were the extent of his possibilities. And Thurley, without hesitation, proceeded to pass him over to willing rivals who had watched the apparent progress of the affair with scantily concealed envy. Miss Clergy had not gone to the mountains but stayed with Thurley, who flitted restlessly from one watering spot to another, appearing at the private affairs for war charities, now and then running into Caleb or Ernestine or Collin who, likewise, seemed to be having a table d’hôte vacation, a little of everything and none of it satisfying. Hortense Quinby, again in charge of Thurley’s apartment, and Polly Harris proved the only exciting events in the long holiday. Without warning Hortense left Thurley as suddenly as she had attached herself to the retinue, a desertion which brought Thurley into town to see why this sudden resignation of a now valued member of her staff. She found Hortense in a khaki uniform with innumerable brass buttons and a mock knapsack across her chest, her restless eyes sparkling with a new eagerness as when she had pleaded to become necessary to some one who was already famous. Hortense was to do land duty in behalf of the French war orphans, only, as she told Thurley forcibly, until America entered the war and overseas duty confronted her. At last she could prove her worth to the world! The land duty in behalf of the orphans, as nearly as Thurley could make out, was to appear publicly as often as possible to solicit subscriptions from all who passed by,—a more exciting form of the occupations of old men to be seen on side streets, a restaurant sign harnessed on both chest and back, announcing the wonders of pot roast and noodles for fifty cents—pie extra. “But just when you’ve learned to be of such use to me,” Thurley urged, “the way you keep everything going—why, Hortense, weren’t you happy?”