At the end of the second week a small fly no larger than a pin’s head began to develop in the sunshine of their amber.  It became visible to the naked eye when Max suddenly resolved to leave his drag, his tiger, his high-stepping grays, and his fair companion, and slip over to Philadelphia—­for a day or two, he explained.  His lawyer needed him, he said, and then again he wanted to see his sister Sue, who had run down to Walnut Hill for the day. (Sue, it might as well be stated, had not yet put in an appearance at Beach Haven, nor had she given any notice of her near arrival; a fact which had not disturbed Lucy in the least until she attempted to explain to Jane.)

“I’ve got to pull up, little woman, and get out for a few days,” Max had begun.  “Morton’s all snarled up, he writes me, over a mortgage, and I must straighten it out.  I’ll leave Bones [the tiger] and everything just as it is.  Don’t mind, do you?”

“Mind!  Of course I do!” retorted Lucy.  “When did you get this marvellous idea into that wonderful brain of yours, Max?  I intended to go to Warehold myself to-morrow.”  She spoke with her usual good-humor, but with a slight trace of surprise and disappointment in her tone.

“When I opened my mail this morning; but my going won’t make any difference about Warehold.  Bones and the groom will take care of you.”

Lucy leaned back in her chair and looked over the rail of the porch.  She had noticed lately a certain restraint in Max’s manner which was new to her.  Whether he was beginning to get bored, or whether it was only one of his moods, she could not decide—­ even with her acute knowledge of similar symptoms.  That some change, however, had come over him she had not the slightest doubt.  She never had any trouble in lassoing her admirers.  That came with a glance of her eye or a lift of her pretty shoulders:  nor for that matter in keeping possession of them as long as her mood lasted.

“Whom do you want to see in Philadelphia, Max?” she asked, smiling roguishly at him.  She held him always by presenting her happiest and most joyous side, whether she felt it or not.

“Sue and Morton—­and you, you dear girl, if you’ll come along.”

“No; I’m not coming along.  I’m too comfortable where I am.  Is this woman somebody you haven’t told me of, Max?” she persisted, looking at him from under half-closed lids.

“Your somebodies are always thin air, little girl; you know everything I have ever done in my whole life,” Max answered gravely.  She had for the last two weeks.

Lucy threw up her hands and laughed so loud and cheerily that an habitue taking his morning constitutional on the boardwalk below turned his head in their direction.  The two were at breakfast under the awnings of Lucy’s portico, Bones standing out of range.

“You don’t believe it?”

“Not one word of it, you fraud; nor do you.  You’ve forgotten one-half of all you’ve done and the other half you wouldn’t dare tell any woman.  Come, give me her name.  Anybody Sue knows?”