Slacking only to be slacked, cars dart off the road and up a gravel driveway that encircles Claxton Inn like a lariat swung, then park themselves among the trees, lights dimmed.  Placid as a manse without, what was once a private and now a public house maintains through lowered lids its discreet white-frame exterior, shades drawn, and only slightly revealing the parting of lace curtains.  It is rearward where what was formerly a dining-room that a huge, screened-in veranda, very whitely lighted, juts suddenly out, and a showy hallway, bordered in potted palms, leads off that.  Here Discretion dares lift her lids to rove the gravel drive for who comes there.

In a car shaped like a motor-boat and as low to the ground Mr. Charley Cox turned in and with a great throttling and choking of engine drew up among the dim-eyed monsters of the grove and directly alongside an eight-cylinder roadster with a snout like a greyhound.

“Aw, Charley, I thought you promised you wasn’t going to stop!”

“Honey, sweetness, I just never was so dry.”

Miss Hassiebrock laid out a hand along his arm, sitting there in the quiet car, the trees closing over them.

“There’s Yiddles Farm a little farther out, Charley; let’s stop there for some spring water.”

He was peeling out of his gauntlets, and cramming them into spacious side pockets.

“Water, honey, can wash me, but it can’t quench me.”

“No high jinks to-night, though, Charley?”

“Sure—­no.”

They high-stepped through the gloom, and finally, with firmer step, up the gravel walk and into the white-lighted, screened-in porch.

Three waiters ran toward their entrance.  A woman with a bare V of back facing them, and three plumes that dipped to her shoulders, turned square in her chair.

“Hi, Charley.  Hi, Loo!”

“H’lo, Jess!”

They walked, thus guided by two waiters, through a light confetti of tossed greetings, sat finally at a table half concealed by an artificial palm.

“You don’t feel like sitting with Jess and the crowd, Loo?”

“Charley, hasn’t that gang got you into enough mix-ups?”

“All right, honey; anything your little heart desires.”

She leaned on her elbows across the table from him, smiling and twirling a great ring of black onyx round her small finger.

“Love me?”

“Br-r-r—­to death!”

“Sure?”

“Sure.  What’ll you have, hon?”

“I don’t care.”

“Got any my special Gold Top on ice for me, George?  Good.  Shoot me a bottle and a special layout of hors-d’oeuvre.  How’s that, sweetness?”

“Yep.”

“Poor little girl,” he said, patting the black onyx, “with the bad old blues!  I know what they are, honey; sometimes I get crazy with ’em myself.”

Her lips trembled.

“It’s you makes me blue, Charley.”