“Don’t bully me, Hugh,” she pleaded.  He was contrite at once and properly so.  “She has lived for this time in her life.  She never has been crossed.  I can’t—­honestly I can’t go to her now and—­quarrel.  That’s what it would mean—­a quarrel.  She would never give in.”

“Well, then, all hope is lost,” he lamented.  For some minutes Miss Vernon gave no response, sitting upon the arm of the chair, a perplexed pucker on her brow and a thoughtful swing to her slippered foot.

These young people had known each other since earliest childhood.  They had played together with the same neighborly toys and they had grown up together with the same neighborly ideals.  Both had whirled in the social swing until the sensation palled.  The most exclusive set in town regarded them as among its most popular members.  It was quite natural that their wedding should be the most brilliant and fashionable of the year.  Their position in society demanded the sacrifice, and her aunt saw the urgent need for making it, notwithstanding the opposition of the young people themselves.

Ridgeway was a couple of years older than his affianced bride, and she was just short of twenty-three.  She, an orphan since early childhood, lived with her widowed aunt—­the social gourmand, to quote Hugh Ridgeway—­and he made his home next door with his sister and her husband.  The two brown stone houses were almost within arm’s reach of each other.  She had painted dainty water colors for his rooms and he had thrown thousands of roses from his windows into her boudoir.  It had been a merry courtship—­the courtship of modern cavalier and lady fair.  Ridgeway’s parents died when he was in college, and he was left to enlarge or despise a fortune that rated him as a millionaire and the best catch in town—­at that time.

He was a member of the Board of Trade, but he was scarcely an operator in the strictest sense of the word.  If he won he whistled, if he lost he whistled.  It mattered little.  Good looking, well dressed, generous to a fault, tainted but moderately with scandal, he was a man whom everybody admired, but who admired few in return—­a perfectly natural and proper condition if one but stops to consider.

Miss Vernon was beautiful—­of that there was no question.  Tall, fair, brown-eyed and full of the life that loves, she ruled the hearts of many and—­kept her hand for one.  Her short, gay life had been one of luxury and ease.  She had known few of its cares; its vicissitudes belonged to the charities she supported with loyal persistency.  Her aunt, society mad, was her only mentor, her only guide.  A path had been made for her, and she saw no other alternative than to travel it as designed.  A careless, buoyant heart, full of love and tenderness and warmth, allowed itself to be tossed by all of the emotions, but always sank back safely into the path of duty and rectitude.  It was not of sufficient moment to combat her aunt’s stubborn authority; it was so much easier to do her own sweet will without conflict and then smile down on the consequences.