"Off and on all summer. It's a good place for points. You got my card, didn't you? I wanted to express my sympathy at your bereavement." "You are very kind; I----" "But what's this I hear about you? You've bloomed out into a celebrity. Everybody is talking about you--everybody, men, women, and children, particularly the girls. When a fellow gives away a fortune like that! _Mais, tu sais, mon cher, c'est beau, c'est bien beau, ça._" And to himself he added, "_Et bien bête._" Already certain members of immediate groups had become interested in the new arrival, and it seemed to Tristrem that he heard his name circulating above the jangle of the waltz. "I am going to the hotel," he said. "I wish you would walk back with me. I haven't spoken to a soul in an age. It would be an act of charity to tell me the gossip." Tristrem, as he made this invitation, marvelled at his own duplicity. For the time being, he cared for the society of Alphabet Jones as he cared for the companionship of a bum-bailiff. Yet still he lured him from the Casino and led him up the road, in the hope that perhaps without direct questioning he might gain some knowledge of Her. As they walked on Jones descanted in the arbitrary didactic manner which is the privilege of men of letters whose letters are not in capitals, and moralized on a variety of topics, not with any covert intention of boring Tristrem, but merely from a habit he had of rehearsing ready-made phrases and noting their effect on a particular listener. This exercise he found beneficial. In airing his views he sometimes stumbled on a good thing which he had not thought of in private. And as he talked Tristrem listened, in the hope that he might say something which would permit him to lead up to the subject that was foremost in his mind. But nothing of such a nature was touched upon, and it was not until the cottage was reached that Tristrem spoke at all. "The Raritans have gone, I see," he remarked, nodding at the cottage as he did so. "Yes, I see by the papers that they sailed yesterday." "You don't mean to say they have gone to Europe. I thought--I heard they were going to Lenox." "If they were, they changed their plans. Miss Raritan didn't seem up to the mark when she was here. In some way she reminded me of a realized ideal--the charm had departed. She used to be enigmatical in her beauty, but this summer, though the beauty was still there, it was no longer enigmatical, it was like a problem solved. After all, it's the way with our girls. A winter or two in New York would take the color out of the cheeks of a Red Indian. _Apropos de bottes_, weren't you rather smitten in that direction?" "And you say they have gone abroad?" Tristrem repeated, utterly unimpressed by the ornateness of the novelist's remarks.