There is an informality about a buckboard that communicates itself at once to conduct.  The exhilaration of the long spring-board, the necessity of holding on to something or somebody to prevent being tossed overboard, put occupants in a larkish mood that they might never attain in an ordinary vehicle.  All this was favorable to King, and it relieved Irene from an embarrassment she might have felt in meeting him under ordinary circumstances.  And King had the tact to treat himself and their meeting merely as accidents.

“The American youth seem to have invented a novel way of disposing of chaperons,” he said.  “To send them in one direction and the party chaperoned in another is certainly original.”

“I’m not sure the chaperons like it.  And I doubt if it is proper to pack them off by themselves, especially when one is a widow and the other is a widower.”

“It’s a case of chaperon eat chaperon.  I hope your friend didn’t mind it.  I had nearly despaired of finding a seat.”

“Mr. Meigs?  He did not say he liked it, but he is the most obliging of men.”

“I suppose you have pretty well seen the island?”

“We have driven about a good deal.  We have seen Southwest Harbor, and Somes’s Sound and Schooner Head, and the Ovens and Otter Cliffs—­there’s no end of things to see; it needs a month.  I suppose you have been up Green Mountain?”

“No.  I sent Mr. Forbes.”

“You ought to go.  It saves buying a map.  Yes, I like the place immensely.  You mustn’t judge of the variety here by the table at Rodick’s.  I don’t suppose there’s a place on the coast that compares with it in interest; I mean variety of effects and natural beauty.  If the writers wouldn’t exaggerate so, talk about ’the sublimity of the mountains challenging the eternal grandeur of the sea’!”

“Don’t use such strong language there on the back seat,” cried Miss Lamont.  “This is a pleasure party.  Mr. Van Dusen wants to know why Maud S. is like a salamander?”

“He is not to be gratified, Marion.  If it is conundrums, I shall get out and walk.”

Before the conundrum was guessed, the volatile Van Dusen broke out into, “Here’s a how d’e do!” One of the Ashley girls in the next wagon caught up the word with, “Here’s a state of things!” and the two buckboards went rattling down the hill to Eagle Lake in a “Mikado” chorus.

“The Mikado troupe seems to have got over here in advance of Sullivan,” said Mr. King to Irene.  “I happened to see the first representation.”

“Oh, half these people were in London last spring.  They give you the impression that they just run over to the States occasionally.  Mr. Van Dusen says he keeps his apartments in whatever street it is off Piccadilly, it’s so much more convenient.”

On the steamer crossing the lake, King hoped for an opportunity to make an explanation to Irene.  But when the opportunity came he found it very difficult to tell what it was he wanted to explain, and so blundered on in commonplaces.