And Peggy, fiery and determined and defiantly unhappy, threw down her cards and escaped so that she might not prove herself tearfully feminine.  She left Brewster still heavily enveloped in melancholy; but she left him puzzled.  He began to wonder if Barbara Drew did have something in the back of her mind.  Then he found his thoughts wandering off toward Peggy and her defiance.  He had only twice before seen her in that mood, and he liked it.  He remembered how she had lost her temper once when she was fifteen, and hated a girl he admired.  Suddenly he laughed aloud at the thought of the fierce little picture she had made, and the gloom, which had been so sedulously cultivated, was dissipated in a moment.  The laugh surprised the man who brought in some letters.  One of them was from “Nopper” Harrison, and gave him all the private news.  The ball was to be given at mid-Lent, which arrived toward the end of March, and negotiations were well under way for the chartering of the “Flitter,” the steam-yacht belonging to Reginald Brown, late of Brown & Brown.

The letter made Brewster chafe under the bonds of inaction.  His affairs were getting into a discouraging state.  The illness was certain to entail a loss of more than $50,000 to his business.  His only consolation came through Harrison’s synopsis of the reports from Gardner, who was managing the brief American tour of the Viennese orchestra.  Quarrels and dissensions were becoming every-day embarrassments, and the venture was an utter failure from a financial point of view.  Broken contracts and lawsuits were turning the tour into one continuous round of losses, and poor Gardner was on the point of despair.  From the beginning, apparently, the concerts had been marked for disaster.  Public indifference had aroused the scorn of the irascible members of the orchestra, and there was imminent danger of a collapse in the organization.  Gardner lived in constant fear that his troop of quarrelsome Hungarians would finish their tour suddenly in a pitched battle with daggers and steins.  Brewster smiled at the thought of practical Gardner trying to smooth down the electric emotions of these musicians.

A few days later Mrs. Prentiss Drew and Miss Drew registered at the Ponce de Leon, and there was much speculation upon the chances for a reconciliation.  Monty, however, maintained a strict silence on the subject, and refused to satisfy the curiosity of his friends.  Mrs. Drew had brought down a small crowd, including two pretty Kentucky girls and a young Chicago millionaire.  She lived well and sensibly, with none of the extravagance that characterized the cottage.  Yet it was inevitable that Brewster’s guests should see hers and join some of their riding parties.  Monty pleaded that he was not well enough to be in these excursions, but neither he nor Barbara cared to over-emphasize their estrangement.