The note was one which the Duchess, after that night of thought which had so shaken her old heart, had decided to be a necessity if her plan of never telling of her discovery of Maggie’s real paternity were to be a success.  The major portion of her note dwelt upon a generality with which Larry already was acquainted:  Joe’s desire to keep clear of all talk touching upon the deeds and the people of his past.  And then in a careless-seeming last sentence the Duchess packed the carefully calculated substance of her entire note: 

“It may not be very important—­but particularly avoid ever mentioning the mere name of Jimmie Carlisle.  They used to know each other, and their acquaintance is about the bitterest thing Joe Ellison has to remember.”

Of course he’d never mention Old Jimmie Carlisle, Larry said to himself as he destroyed the note—­never guessing, in making this natural response to what seemed a most natural request, that he had become an unconscious partner in the plan of the warm-hearted, scheming Duchess.

There was one detail of Joe Ellison’s behavior which aroused Larry’s mild curiosity.  Directly beneath one of Joe’s gardens, hardly a hundred yards away, was a bit of beach and a pavilion which were used in common by the families from the surrounding estates.  The girls and younger women were just home from schools and colleges, and at high tide were always on the beach.  At this period, whenever he was at Cedar Crest, Larry saw Joe, his work apparently forgotten, gazing fixedly down upon the young figures splashing about the water in their bright bathing-suits or lounging about the pavilion in their smart summer frocks.

This interest made Larry wonder, though to be sure not very seriously.  For he had never a guess of how deep Joe’s interest was.  He did not know, could not know, that that tall, fixed figure, with its one absorbing idea, was thinking of his daughter.  He could not know that Joe Ellison, emotionally elated and with a hungry, self-denying affection that reached out toward them all, was seeing his daughter as just such a girl as one of these—­simple, wholesome, well-brought-up.  He could not know that Joe, in a way, perceived his daughter in every nice young woman he saw.

Toward evening of the seventh day of her visit, Miss Sherwood returned.  Larry was on the piazza when the car bearing her swept into the white-graveled curve of the drive.  The car was a handsome, powerful roadster.  Larry had started out to be of such assistance as he could, when the figure at the wheel, a man, sprang from the car and helped Miss Sherwood alight.  Larry saw that the man was Hunt—­such a different Hunt!—­and he had begun a quick retreat when Hunt’s voice called after him: 

“You there—­wait a minute!  I want a little chin-chin with you.”

Larry halted.  He could not help overhearing the few words that passed between Hunt and Miss Sherwood.

“Thank you ever so much,” she said in her even voice.  “Then you’re coming?”