“And so our day is spoiled,” said Archibald.

“We can come again,” said the Admiral, “but we must be getting back to Siasconset to-morrow.  I wrote to Tristram.  We’ll have Prime and his wife here for dinner to-night, and drive them out somewhere this afternoon.  I remember Mark Prime well.  I played golf with him one season at Del Monte.  How did you happen to know him, Becky?”

Becky told of the Major’s sojourn to King’s Crest.

The Copes made separate plans for the afternoon.  “If I can’t have you to myself, Becky,” Cope complained, “I won’t have you at all——­”

Madge, sitting later next to Becky in the Admiral’s big car, was lovely in a great cape of pale wisteria, with a turban of the same color set low on her burnt-gold hair.

“I have brought you wonderful news of Randy Paine,” she said to Becky.  “He has sold his story, ‘The Trumpeter Swan.’  To one of the big magazines.  And they have asked for more.  He is by way of being rather—­famous.  He came on to New York the day after we arrived.  They had telegraphed for him.  We wanted him to come up here with us, but he wouldn’t.”

“Why wouldn’t he?”

“He had some engagements, and after that——­”

“He will never write another story like ‘The Trumpeter Swan,’” said Becky.

“Why not?”

“It—­it doesn’t seem as if he could——­ It is—­wonderful, Mrs. Prime——­”

“Well, Randy—­is wonderful,” said Madge.

A silence fell between them, and when Madge spoke again it was of the Watermans.  “We go to the Crossing to-morrow.  I must see Flora before I go West.”

The blood ran up into Becky’s heart.  She wondered if George Dalton was with the Watermans.  But she did not dare ask.

So she asked about California instead.  “You will live out there?”

“Yes, on a ranch.  There will be chickens and cows and hogs.  It sounds unromantic, doesn’t it?  But it is really frightfully interesting.  It is what I have always dreamed about.  Mark says this is to be my—­reincarnation.”

She laughed a little as she explained what she meant.  “And when I was in New York, I bought the duckiest lilac linens and ginghams, and white aprons, frilly ones.  Mark says I shall look like a dairy maid in ‘Robin Hood.’”

The Major, who was in front of them with the Admiral, turned and spoke.

“Tell her about Kemp.”

“Oh, he is going with us.  It develops that there is a girl in Scotland who is waiting for him.  And he is going to send for her—­and they are to have a cottage on the ranch, and come into the house to help us, and there is an old Chinese cook that Mark has had for years.”

Becky spoke sharply.  “You don’t mean Mr.—­Dalton’s Kemp?”

“Yes.  He came to Mark.  Didn’t you know?”

Becky had not known.

“Why did he leave Mr.—­Dalton?”

“He and Georgie had a falling out about an omelette.  I fancy it was a sort of comic opera climax.  So Mark got a treasure and Georgie-Porgie lost one——­”