“You hold up the social end of the game,” he laughed.  “I’ll hustle logs.”

So Stella invaded the Abbey-Monohan precincts by herself and enjoyed it—­for she met a houseful of young people from the coast, and in that light-hearted company she forgot for the time being that she was married and the responsible mistress of a house.  Paul Abbey was there, but he had apparently forgotten or forgiven the blow she had once dealt his vanity.  Paul, she reflected, was not the sort to mourn a lost love long.

She had the amused experience too of beholding Charlie Benton appear an hour or so before she departed and straightway monopolize Linda Abbey in his characteristically impetuous fashion.  Charlie was no diplomat.  He believed in driving straight to any goal he selected.

“So that’s the reason for the outward metamorphosis,” Stella reflected.  “Well?”

Altogether she enjoyed the afternoon hugely.  The only fly in her ointment was a greasy smudge bestowed upon her dress—­a garment she prized highly—­by some cordage coiled on the Panther’s deck.  The black tender had carried too many cargoes of loggers and logging supplies to be a fit conveyance for persons in party attire.  She exhibited the soiled gown to Fyfe with due vexation.

“I hope you’ll have somebody scrub down the Panther the next time I want to go anywhere in a decent dress,” she said ruefully.  “That’ll never come out.  And it’s the prettiest thing I’ve got too.”

“Ah, what’s the odds?” Fyfe slipped one arm around her waist.  “You can buy more dresses.  Did you have a good time?  That’s the thing!”

That ruined gown, however, subsequently produced an able, forty-foot, cruising launch, powerfully engined, easy in a sea, and comfortably, even luxuriously fitted as to cabin.  With that for their private use, the Panther was left to her appointed service, and in the new boat Fyfe and Stella spent many a day abroad on Roaring Lake.  They fished together, explored nooks and bays up and down its forty miles of length, climbed hills together like the bear of the ancient rhyme, to see what they could see.  And the Waterbug served to put them on intimate terms with their neighbors, particularly the Abbey crowd.  The Abbeys took to them wholeheartedly.  Fyfe himself was highly esteemed by the elder Abbey, largely, Stella suspected, for his power on Roaring Lake.  Abbey pere had built up a big fortune out of timber.  He respected any man who could follow the same path to success.  Therefore he gave Fyfe double credit,—­for making good, and for a personality that could not be overlooked.  He told Stella that once; that is to say, he told her confidentially that her husband was a very “able” young man.  Abbey senior was short and double-chinned and inclined to profuse perspiration if he moved in haste over any extended time.  Paul promised to be like him, in that respect.

Summer slipped by.  There were dances, informal little hops at the Abbey domicile, return engagements at the Fyfe bungalow, laughter and music and Japanese lanterns strung across the lawn.  There was tea and tennis and murmuring rivers of small talk.  And amid this Stella Fyfe flitted graciously, esteeming it her world, a fair measure of what the future might be.  Viewed in that light, it seemed passable enough.