“Now, don’t be cross, dear,” he cried, patting her shoulder with his fingers.  “You know I don’t want to leave you.  I shall be perfectly wretched while I’m gone, but there’s no help for it.  Morton’s such a fussy old fellow—­always wanting to do a lot of things that can, perhaps, wait just as well as not.  Hauled me down from Walnut Hill half a dozen times once, and after all the fellow wouldn’t sell.  But this time it’s important and I must go.  Bones,” and he lifted his finger to the boy, “tell John I want the light wagon.  I’ll take the 11.12 to Philadelphia.”

The tiger advanced ten steps and stood at attention, his finger at his eyebrow.  Lucy turned her face toward the boy.  “No, Bones, you’ll do nothing of the kind.  You tell John to harness the grays to the drag.  I’ll go to the station with Mr. Feilding.”

Max shrugged his shoulders.  He liked Lucy for a good many things—­one was her independence, another was her determination to have her own way.  Then, again, she was never so pretty as when she was a trifle angry; her color came and went so deliciously and her eyes snapped so charmingly.  Lucy saw the shrug and caught the satisfied look in his face.  She didn’t want to offend him and yet she didn’t intend that he should go without a parting word from her—­tender or otherwise, as circumstances might require.  She knew she had not found the button, and in her doubt determined for the present to abandon the search.

“No, Bones, I’ve changed my mind,” she called to the boy, who was now half way down the piazza.  “I don’t think I will go.  I’ll stop here, Max, and do just what you want me to do,” she added in a softened voice.  “Come along,” and she slipped her hand in his and the two walked toward the door of his apartments.

When the light wagon and satin-skinned sorrel, with John on the seat and Bones in full view, stopped at the sanded porch, Mrs. Coates and Lucy formed part of the admiring group gathered about the turn-out.  All of Mr. Feilding’s equipages brought a crowd of onlookers, no matter how often they appeared —­he had five with him at Beach Haven, including the four-in-hand which he seldom used—­ but the grays and the light wagon, by common consent, were considered the most “stylish” of them all, not excepting the drag.

After Max had gathered the reins in his hands, had balanced the whip, had settled himself comfortably and with a wave of his hand to Lucy had driven off, Mrs. Coates slipped her arm through my lady’s and the two slowly sauntered to their rooms.

“Charming man, is he not?” Mrs. Coates ventured.  “Such a pity he is not married!  You know I often wonder whom such men will marry.  Some pretty school-girl, perhaps, or prim woman of forty.”

Lucy laughed.

“No,” she answered, “you are wrong.  The bread-and-butter miss would never suit Max, and he’s past the eye-glass and side-curl age.  The next phase, if he ever reaches it, will be somebody who will make him do—­not as he pleases, but as she pleases.  A man like Max never cares for a woman any length of time who humors his whims.”