The youthfulness of it did not rob it of real dignity.  Isabelle, wretchedly mounting the steps beside him, felt her heart contract with real pain.  He would go away—­it would all be over and forgotten in a few weeks—­and yet, how she longed to comfort him, to make him happy again!

She looked obliquely at his set face, and what she saw there made her feel ashamed.

On the bright level of the upper terrace tea was merrily in progress.  In the streaming afternoon light the scene was strikingly cheerful and pretty:  the wide wicker chairs with their gay cretonne cushions, the over-shadowing green trees in heavy leaf, the women’s many-coloured gowns and the men’s cool whites and grays.  On the broad white balustrade Isabelle’s great peacock was standing, with his tail fanned to its amazing breadth; two maids, in their crisp black and white, were coming and going with silver and china on their trays.

Miss Field had duly come down to preside, and all was well.  Isabelle, as she dropped into a chair, gave a sigh of relief; everyone was amused and absorbed and happy.  Everyone, that is, except the magnificent and sharp-eyed old lady who sat, regally throned, near her, and favoured her immediately with a dissatisfied look.  Old Madame Carter had her own good reasons for being angry, and she never spared any one available from a participation in her mood.

She was remarkably handsome, even at seventy-five; with a crown of puffed white hair, gold-rimmed eyeglasses, and an erect and finely preserved figure.  Her silk gown flowed over her knees, and formed a rich fold about her shining slippers; a wide lace scarf was about her shoulders, and she wore an old-fashioned watchchain of heavy braided gold, and a great many handsome pins and rings.  Her voice was theatrically deep and clear, and her manner vigorous and impressive.

“Well, my dear, your friends were naturally wondering what important matter kept their hostess away from her guests,” she began.  Isabelle had not been her daughter-in-law for more than twenty years for nothing.  She shrugged and smiled carelessly, with an indifferent glance at the group.  Ward’s friends, the tennis-players, and old Doctor and Mrs. Potter and their niece, from next door.  Nobody here of any especial importance!

“Harriet is managing very nicely,” Isabelle said, contentedly, as Tony, with a sombre face and averted eyes, brought her her tea.

“So Ward seems to think,” observed Ward’s grandmother with acidity.  Isabelle laughed indifferently.  Her son, slender and tall, and with something of her own eagerness and fire in his sunburned young face, was beside Miss Field, who talked to him in a quiet aside while she busied herself with cups and spoons.

“Perfectly safe there!” Isabelle said.

“I should hope so!” old Madame Carter remarked, pointedly.  “At least if there’s any of our blood in his veins—­but of course he’s all Slocum.  They used to say of my Aunt Georgina that she never married because the only man she ever loved was beneath her socially—­”