“Wilfred had looked slightly rattled from the beginning.  Now he smiled, but only with his lips—­he made it seem like a mere Swedish exercise or something, and the next second his face looked as if it had been sewed up for the winter.

“’Little starry-eyed gypsy, I say, when are you going to pull some of that open-road stuff?’ says Ben again, all cordial and sinister.

“Wilfred gulped and tried to be jaunty.  ’Oh, as to that, I’m here to-day and there to-morrow,’ he murmurs, and nervously fixes his necktie.

“‘Oh, my, and isn’t that nice!’ says Ben heartily—­’the urge of the wild to her wayward child’—­I know you’re a slave to it.  And now you’re going to tell us all about the open road, and then you and I are going to have an intimate chat and I’ll tell you about it—­about some of the dearest little open roads you ever saw, right round in these parts.  I’ve just counted nine, all leading out of town to the cunningest mountains and glens that would make you write poetry hours at a time, with Nature’s glad fruits and nuts and a mug of spring water and some bottled beer and a ham and some rump steak—­’

“The stillness of that group had become darned painful, I want to tell you.  There was a horrid fear that Ben Sutton might go too far, even for a country club.  Every woman was shuddering and smiling in a painful manner, and the men regarding Ben with glistening eyes.  And Ben felt it himself all at once.  So he says:  ‘But I fear I am detaining you,’ and let go of the end of Wilfred’s tie that he had been toying with in a somewhat firm manner.  ’Let us be on with your part of the evening’s entertainment,’ he says, ’but don’t forget, gypsy wilding that you are, that you and I must have a chat about open roads the moment you have finished.  I know we are cramping you.  By that time you will be feeling the old, restless urge and you might take a road that wasn’t open if I didn’t direct you.’

“He patted Wilfred loudly on the back a couple of times and Wilfred ducked the third pat and got out of the group, and the ladies all began to flurry their voices about the lovely June evening but wouldn’t it be pleasanter inside, and Henrietta tragically called from the doorway to come at once, for God’s sake, so they all went at once, with the men only half trailing, and inside we could hear ’em fixing chairs round and putting out a table for the poet to stand by, and so forth.

“Alonzo, however, had not trailed.  He was over on the steps holding Beryl Mae Macomber by her new scarf and telling her how flowerlike her beauty was.  And old Judge Ballard was holding about half the men, including Ben Sutton, while he made a speech.  I hung back to listen.  ‘Sir,’ he was saying to Ben, ’Secretary Seward some years since purchased your territory from Russia for seven million dollars despite the protests of a clamorous and purblind opposition.  How niggardly seems that purchase price at this moment!  For Alaska has perfected you, sir, if it did not produce you.  Gentlemen, I feel that we dealt unfairly by Russia.  But that is in the dead past.  It is not too late, however, to tiptoe to the grillroom and offer a toast to our young sister of the snows.’