“It’s very kind of you to expect me.  Is there anybody else here I know?”

“Several hundreds, I should say.  If you cannot find friends here, you are a subject for an orphan-asylum.  And you have not seen anybody?”

“Well, I was late at breakfast.”

“And you have not looked on the register?”

“Yes, I did run my eye over the register.”

“And you are standing right before me and trying to look as if you did not know that Irene Benson is in the house.  I didn’t think, Mr. King, it had gone that far-indeed I didn’t.  You know I’m in a manner responsible for it.  And I heard all about you at Newport.  She’s a heart of gold, that girl.”

“Did she—­did Miss Benson say anything about Newport?”

“No.  Why?”

“Oh, I didn’t know but she might have mentioned how she liked it.”

“I don’t think she liked it as much as her mother did.  Mrs. Benson talks of nothing else.  Irene said nothing special to me.  I don’t know what she may have said to Mr. Meigs,” this wily woman added, in the most natural manner.

“Who is Mr. Meigs?”

“Mr. Alfred Meigs, Boston.  He is a rich widower, about forty—­the most fascinating age for a widower, you know.  I think he is conceited, but he is really a most entertaining man; has traveled all over the world —­Egypt, Persia—­lived in Japan, prides himself a little on never having been in Colorado or Florida.”

“What does he do?”

“Do?  He drives Miss Benson to Otter Cliffs, and out on the Cornice Road, about seven days in the week, and gets up sailing-parties and all that in the intervals.”

“I mean his occupation.”

“Isn’t that occupation enough?  Well, he has a library and a little archaeological museum, and prints monographs on art now and then.  If he were a New-Yorker, you know, he would have a yacht instead of a library.  There they are now.”

A carriage with a pair of spirited horses stood at the bottom of the steps on the entrance side.  Mrs. Cortlandt and King turned the corner of the piazza and walked that way.  On the back seat were Mrs. Benson and Mrs. Simpkins.  The gentleman holding the reins was just helping Irene to the high seat in front.  Mr. King was running down the long flight of steps.  Mrs. Benson saw him, bowed most cordially, and called his name.  Irene, turning quickly, also bowed—­he thought there was a flush on her face.  The gentleman, in the act of starting the horses, raised his hat.  King was delighted to notice that he was bald.  He had a round head, snugly-trimmed beard slightly dashed with gray, was short and a trifle stout—­King thought dumpy.  “I suppose women like that kind of man,” he said to Mrs. Cortlandt when the carriage was out of sight.

Why not?  He has perfect manners; he knows the world—­that is a great point, I can tell you, in the imagination of a girl; he is rich; and he is no end obliging.”