“And it seemed that the cuss had not only shown her more than a little attention at evening functions but had escorted her to the midspring production of ‘Hamlet’ by the Red Gap Amateur Theatrical and Dramatic Society.  True, he had conducted himself like a perfect gentleman every minute they was alone together, even when they had to go home in Eddie Pierce’s hack because it was raining when the show let out—­but would I, or would I not, suspect from all this that he was in the least degree thinking of her in a way that—­you know!

“Poor child of twenty-eight, with her hungry eyes and flushed face while she was showing down her hand to me!  I seen the scoundrel’s play at once.  Hetty was the one safe bet for him in Red Gap’s social whirl.  He was wise, all right—­this Mr. D. He’d known in a second he could trust himself alone with that girl and be as safe as a babe in its mother’s arms.  Of course I couldn’t say this to Hetty.  I just said he was a man that seemed to know his own mind very clearly, whatever it was, and Hetty blushed some more and said that something within her responded to a certain note in his voice.  We let it go at that.

“So I think and ponder about poor Hetty, trying to invent some conspiracy that would fix it right, because she was the ideal mate for an assistant cashier that had a certain position to keep up.  For that matter she was good enough for any man.  Then I hear she has joined the riding club, and an all day’s ride has been planned for the next Saturday up to Stender’s Spring, with a basket lunch and a romantic ride back by moonlight.  Of course, I don’t believe in any of this spiritualist stuff, but you can’t tell me there ain’t something in it, mind-reading or something, with the hunches you get when parties is in some grave danger.

“Stella Ballard it was tells me about the picnic, calling me in as I passed their house to show me her natty new riding togs that had just come from the mail-order house.  She called from back of a curtain, and when I got into the parlour she had them on, pleased as all get-out.  Pretty they was, too—­riding breeches and puttees and a man’s flannel shirt and a neat-fitting Norfolk jacket, and Stella being a fine, upstanding figure.

“‘They may cause considerable talk,’ says she, smoothing down one leg where it wrinkled a bit, ’but really I think they look perfectly stunning on me, and wasn’t it lucky they fit me so beautifully?  They’re called the Non Plush Ultra.’

“‘The what?’ I says.

“‘The Non Plush Ultra,’ she answers.  ’That’s the name of them sewed in the band.’

“‘What’s that mean?’ I wanted to know.

“‘Why,’ says Stella, ’that’s Latin or Greek, I forget which, and it means they’re the best, I believe.  Oh, let me see!  Why, it means nothing beyond, or something like that; the farthest you can go, I think.  One forgets all that sort of thing after leaving high school.’

“‘Well,’ I says, ’they fit fine, and it’s the only modest rig for a woman to ride a horse in, but they certainly are non plush, all right.  That thin goods will never wear long against saddle leather, take my word for it.’