“Was she?  I’m sure I never told her I was coming here.”

“No, simple man.  You were with her at Bar Harbor, and I suppose she never mentioned to you that she was coming here?”

“But why did you think she expected me?”

“You men are too aggravatingly stupid.  I never saw astonishment better feigned.  I dare say it imposed upon that other admirer of hers also.  Well, I like her, and I’m going to be good to her.”  This meant a good deal.  Mrs. Farquhar was related to everybody in Virginia—­that is, everybody who was anybody before the war—­and she could count at that moment seventy-five cousins, some of them first and some of them double-first cousins, at the White Sulphur.  Mrs. Farquhar’s remark meant that all these cousins and all their friends the South over would stand by Miss Benson socially from that moment.

The morning german had just begun in the ballroom.  The gallery was thronged with spectators, clustering like bees about the large windows, and the notes of the band came floating out over the lawn, bringing to the groups there the lulling impression that life is all a summer holiday.

“And they say she is from Ohio.  It is right odd, isn’t it? but two or three of the prettiest women here are from that State.  There is Mrs. Martin, sweet as a jacqueminot.  I’d introduce you if her husband were here.  Ohio!  Well, we get used to it.  I should have known the father and mother were corn-fed.  I suppose you prefer the corn-feds to the Confeds.  But there’s homespun and homespun.  You see those under the trees yonder?  Georgia homespun!  Perhaps you don’t see the difference.  I do.”

“I suppose you mean provincial.”

“Oh, dear, no.  I’m provincial.  It is the most difficult thing to be in these leveling days.  But I am not going to interest you in myself.  I am too unselfish.  Your Miss Benson is a fine girl, and it does not matter about her parents.  Since you Yankees upset everything by the war, it is really of no importance who one’s mother is.  But, mind, this is not my opinion.  I’m trying to adjust myself.  You have no idea how reconstructed I am.”

And with this Mrs. Farquhar went over to Miss Benson, and chatted for a few moments, making herself particularly agreeable to Mr. Meigs, and actually carried that gentleman off to the spring, and then as an escort to her cottage, shaking her fan as she went away at Mr. King and Irene, and saying, “It is a waste of time for you youngsters not to be in the german.”

The german was just ended, and the participants were grouping themselves on the gallery to be photographed, the usual custom for perpetuating the memory of these exercises, which only take place every other morning.  And since something must be done, as there are only six nights for dancing in the week, on the off mornings there are champagne and fruit parties on the lawn.

It was not about the german, however, that King was thinking.  He was once more beside the woman he loved, and all the influences of summer and the very spirit of this resort were in his favor.  If I cannot win her here, he was saying to himself, the Meigs is in it.  They talked about the journey, about Luray, where she had been, and about the Bridge, and the abnormal gayety of the Springs.