"Not where money is the basis of everything except eligibility to hereditary societies of the self-glorification stripe." "You're too pessimistic!" laughed Stephanie. "My dear, you haven't a father who is an officer in the Tuscarora Trust Company--and you haven't seen the men who visit him. It's a sad commentary on what we are coming to--and the elevation of the parvenu. Let's change the subject. I'm becoming excited; the next thing I'll ditch the car, or run into a telegraph pole." "Heaven forefend!" exclaimed Stephanie. A little later, as they spun down the macadam near the Criss-Cross gates, they passed a station-wagon drawn by a spanking pair of bays. The man in it took off his hat and bowed. "There is Porshinger now!" said Stephanie. Gladys nodded. "He has come out to spend the night at the Woodsides', I reckon--it's their conveyance." XI THE OVERTON MEADOW "I see the Lorraine woman is with Gladys Chamberlain," observed Porshinger, as he and his host were enjoying a good-night smoke in the billiard room, and incidentally knocking the balls about. "Hum!" replied Woodside, as he made a neat gather along the rail. "When did you see her--come down on the same train?" "No--passed them in the car, as I came from the station. What's she going to do--make it up with Lorraine, if he recovers?" "Search me!" answered the other. "Will he have her?" "You're a little behind, Josh--everybody knows that he has offered and she's undecided." "Well, I wish him success. She's a damn good looking woman--better looking even than when she ran away with Amherst--don't you think so? Oh! I forgot you didn't know her then." Porshinger shot a sharp look down the table--and followed it with a smile. "I don't know her now--to speak to," he said. "But I have no trouble in recollecting two years back--and I quite agree with you. She is even better looking now. I don't wonder that she turned Amherst's head." "It's a cold head, she turned!" Woodside laughed. "I fancy she found it out soon enough, and that they had a parrot and monkey time of it until they broke finally. The ways of the transgressor are full of punctures." "You refer to only one sort of transgressors, I imagine," Porshinger remarked, with a thinly veiled contempt. "Yes at that moment I did," said his host indifferently; "but it applies to every one--you and me included," and he steadied himself for a massè. "You know the Chamberlains well enough to--happen in?" asked Porshinger presently. "Want to meet the statuesque beauty--hey?" Woodside laughed. Porshinger nodded. "She does rather appeal to one," Woodside confessed. "If I weren't married, I think I would take a flyer myself." "Don't let that stop you--marriage is no disqualification with her; she's proven it." "She has proven it _once_--she will be mighty careful not to let it happen again," said Woodside.