To this Miss Leila answered only with a weary shrug.

“Been drinking lately,” Mr. Hoyt volunteered.

“You say he has?” Mrs. Buckney took him up promptly.  “Is that so?  I knew he did all the time, of course, but I hadn’t heard lately.  Well—!  Pretty hard on Mrs. Breckenridge, isn’t it?”

“Pretty hard on his daughter,” Miss Leila drawled.  “He has all kinds of money, hasn’t he, Park?”

“Scads,” said Mr. Hoyt succinctly.  Conversation languished.  Miss Leila presently said decidedly that unless her mother stood still, the sun, which was indeed sinking low in the western sky, got in everyone’s eyes.  Miss Edith said that she was dying for tea; Mr. Hoyt’s watch was consulted.  Four o’clock; it was a little too early for tea.

At about five o’clock the sunlight was softened by a steadily rising bank of fog, which drifted in from the east; a mist almost like a light rain beat upon the faces of the last golfers.  There were no riders on the bridle path now, and the long line of motor cars parked by the clubhouse doors began to move and shift and lessen.  People with dinner engagements melted mysteriously away, lights bloomed suddenly in the dining-room, shades were drawn and awnings furled.

But in the club’s great central apartment—­which was reception-room, lounging-room, and tea-room, and which, opened to the immense porches, was used for dances in summer, and closed and holly-trimmed, was the scene of many a winter dance as well—­a dozen good friends and neighbors lingered for tea.  The women, sunk in deep chairs about the blazing logs in the immense fireplace, gossiped in low tones together, punctuating their talk with an occasional burst of soft laughter.  The men watched teacups, adding an occasional comment to the talk, but listening in silence for the most part, their amused eyes on the women’s interested faces.

Here was a representative group, ranging in age from old Peter Pomeroy, who had been one of the club’s founders twelve years ago, and at sixty was one of its prominent members to-day, to lovely Vivian Sartoris, a demure, baby-faced little blonde of eighteen, who might be confidently expected to make a brilliant match in a year or two.  Peter, slim, hard, gray-haired and leaden-skinned, well-groomed and irreproachably dressed, was discussing a cotillion with Mrs. Sartoris, a stout, florid little woman who was only twice her daughter’s age.  Mrs. Sartoris really did look young to be the mother of a popular debutante; she rode and played golf and tennis as briskly as ever; it was her pose to bring up the subject of age at all times, and to threaten Vivian with terrible penalties if she dared marry before her mother was forty at least.