elaborate politeness; and she accused him with entire justice of being more intimate with them than with her, with whom he was united in holy bonds.  The inevitable result of these tactics was the modern mansion in the upper part of Warren Street, known as the “residential” district.  Built on a wide lot, with a garage on one side to the rear, with a cement driveway divided into squares, and a wall of democratic height separating its lawn from the sidewalk, the house may for the present be better imagined than described.

A pious chronicler of a more orthodox age would doubtless have deemed it a judgment that Cora Ditmar survived but two years to enjoy the glories of the Warren Street house.  For a while her husband indulged in a foolish optimism, only to learn that the habit of matrimonial blackmail, once acquired, is not easily shed.  Scarcely had he settled down to the belief that by the gratification of her supreme desire he had achieved comparative peace, than he began to suspect her native self-confidence of cherishing visions of a career contemplating nothing less than the eventual abandonment of Hampton itself as a field too limited for her social talents and his business ability and bank account—­at which she was pleased to hint.  Hampton suited Ditmar, his passion was the Chippering Mill; and he was in process of steeling himself to resist, whatever the costs, this preposterous plan when he was mercifully released by death.  Her intention of sending the children away to acquire a culture and finish Hampton did not afford,—­George to Silliston Academy, Amy to a fashionable boarding school,—­he had not opposed, yet he did not take the idea with sufficient seriousness to carry it out.  The children remained at home, more or less—­increasingly less—­in the charge of an elderly woman who acted as housekeeper.

Ditmar had miraculously regained his freedom.  And now, when he made trips to New York and Boston, combining business with pleasure, there were no questions asked, no troublesome fictions to be composed.  More frequently he was in Boston, where he belonged to a large and comfortable club, not too exacting in regard to membership, and here he met his cronies and sometimes planned excursions with them, automobile trips in summer to the White Mountains or choice little resorts to spend Sundays and holidays, generally taking with them a case of champagne and several bags of golf sticks.  He was fond of shooting, and belonged to a duck club on the Cape, where poker and bridge were not tabooed.  To his intimates he was known as “Dit.”  Nor is it surprising that his attitude toward women had become in general one of resentment; matrimony he now regarded as unmitigated folly.  At five and forty he was a vital, dominating, dust-coloured man six feet and half an inch in height, weighing a hundred and ninety pounds, and thus a trifle fleshy.  When relaxed, and in congenial company, he looked rather boyish, an aspect characteristic of many American business men of to-day.