“You’ll like Anna Drummond; we’re old school friends.  Forbes and Miss Roberta naturally seem to get together wherever they are.  And Miss Ruth is a mighty nice little girl.”

Across the blazing bonfire two men scrutinized each other:  Forbes Westcott, one of the cleverest attorneys of a large city, a man with a rising reputation, who held himself as a man does who knows that every day advances his success; Richard Kendrick, well-known young millionaire, hitherto a travelled idler and spender of his income, now a newly fledged business man with all his honours yet to be won.  They looked each other steadily in the eye as they grasped hands by the bonfire, and in his inmost heart each man recognized in the other an antagonist.

Richard skated away with Miss Drummond, a wholesomely gay and attractive girl who could skate as well as she could talk and laugh.  He devoted himself to her for half an hour; then, with a skill of which he was master from long exercise, he brought about a change of partners.  The next time he rounded the bend into a path which led straight down the moonlight it was in the company he longed for.

Richard’s heart leaped exultantly as he skated around the river bend in the moonlight with Roberta.  And when his hands gathered hers into his close grasp it was somehow as if he had taken hold of an electric battery.  He distinctly felt the difference between her hands and those of the other girl.  It was very curious and he could not wholly understand it.

“What kind of gloves do you wear?” was his first inquiry.  He held up the hand which was not in Roberta’s muff and tried to see it in the dim light.

“You are deep in the new business, aren’t you?” she mocked.  “Whatever they are, will you put them into your stock?”

“Don’t you dare make fun of my new business.  I’m in it for scalps and have no time for joking.  Of course I want to put this make in stock.  I never took hold of so warm a hand on so cold a night.  The warmth comes right through your glove and mine to my hand, runs up my arm, and stirs up my circulation generally.  It was running a little cold with some of the things Miss Drummond was telling me.”

“What could they be?”

“About how all the rest of you know each other so well.  She described all sorts of good times you have all had together on this river in the summer.  It seems odd that Benson never told me about any of them while we were together at college.”

“They have happened mostly in the last two summers, since Mr. Benson left college.  We always spend at least part of our summers here, and we have had worlds of fun on the river and beside it—­and in it.”

“I’m glad I’m a business man in Eastman.  I can imagine what this river is like in summer.  It’s wonderful to-night, isn’t it?  Let’s skate on down to the mouth and out to sea.  What do you say?”

“A beautiful plan.  We have a good start; we must make time or it will be moonset before we come to the sea.”