“What harm can it do?” she asked plaintively.  “Howard doesn’t have to rent the house, although it would be a sin if he didn’t.  Find out the rent in the morning, Sid, and we’ll all four go down on Sunday and look at it, and lunch at the Quicksands Club.  I’m sure I can get out of my engagement at Laura Dean’s—­this is so important.  What do you say, Honora?”

“I think it would be delightful,” said Honora.

CHAPTER V

QUICKSANDS

To convey any adequate idea of the community familiarly known as Quicksands a cinematograph were necessary.  With a pen we can only approximate the appearance of the shifting grains at any one time.  Some households there were, indeed, which maintained a precarious though seemingly miraculous footing on the surface, or near it, going under for mere brief periods, only to rise again and flaunt men-servants in the face of Providence.

There were real tragedies, too, although a casual visitor would never have guessed it.  For tragedies sink, and that is the end of them.  The cinematograph, to be sure, would reveal one from time to time, coming like a shadow across an endless feast, and gone again in a flash.  Such was what might appropriately be called the episode of the Alfred Ferns.  After three years of married life they had come, they had rented; the market had gone up, they had bought and built—­upon the sands.  The ancient farmhouse which had stood on the site had been torn down as unsuited to a higher civilization, although the great elms which had sheltered it had been left standing, in grave contrast to the twisted cedars and stunted oaks so much in evidence round about.

The Ferns—­or rather little Mrs. Fern—­had had taste, and the new house reflected it.  As an indication of the quality of imagination possessed by the owners, the place was called “The Brackens.”  There was a long porch on the side of the ocean, but a view of the water was shut off from it by a hedge which, during the successive ownerships of the adjoining property, had attained a height of twelve feet.  There was a little toy greenhouse connecting with the porch (an “economy” indulged in when the market had begun to go the wrong way for Mr. Fern).  Exile, although unpleasant, was sometimes found necessary at Quicksands, and even effective.

Above all things, however, if one is describing Quicksands, one must not be depressing.  That is the unforgiveable sin there.  Hence we must touch upon these tragedies lightly.

If, after walking through the entrance in the hedge that separated the Brackens from the main road, you turned to the left and followed a driveway newly laid out between young poplars, you came to a mass of cedars.  Behind these was hidden the stable.  There were four stalls, all replete with brass trimmings, and a box, and the carriage-house was made large enough for the break which Mr. Fern had been getting ready to buy when he had been forced, so unexpectedly, to change his mind.