of Hampton itself as a field too limited for her social talents and his business ability and bank account—­at which she was pleased to hint.  Hampton suited Ditmar, his passion was the Chippering Mill; and he was in process of steeling himself to resist, whatever the costs, this preposterous plan when he was mercifully released by death.  Her intention of sending the children away to acquire a culture and finish Hampton did not afford,—­George to Silliston Academy, Amy to a fashionable boarding school,—­he had not opposed, yet he did not take the idea with sufficient seriousness to carry it out.  The children remained at home, more or less—­increasingly less—­in the charge of an elderly woman who acted as housekeeper.

Ditmar had miraculously regained his freedom.  And now, when he made trips to New York and Boston, combining business with pleasure, there were no questions asked, no troublesome fictions to be composed.  More frequently he was in Boston, where he belonged to a large and comfortable club, not too exacting in regard to membership, and here he met his cronies and sometimes planned excursions with them, automobile trips in summer to the White Mountains or choice little resorts to spend Sundays and holidays, generally taking with them a case of champagne and several bags of golf sticks.  He was fond of shooting, and belonged to a duck club on the Cape, where poker and bridge were not tabooed.  To his intimates he was known as “Dit.”  Nor is it surprising that his attitude toward women had become in general one of resentment; matrimony he now regarded as unmitigated folly.  At five and forty he was a vital, dominating, dust-coloured man six feet and half an inch in height, weighing a hundred and ninety pounds, and thus a trifle fleshy.  When relaxed, and in congenial company, he looked rather boyish, an aspect characteristic of many American business men of to-day.

His head was large, he wore his hair short, his features also proclaimed him as belonging to a modern American type in that they were not clear-cut, but rather indefinable; a bristling, short-cropped moustache gave him a certain efficient, military look which, when introduced to strangers as “Colonel,” was apt to deceive them into thinking him an army officer.  The title he had once received as a member of the staff of the governor of the state, and was a tribute to a gregariousness and political influence rather than to a genius for the art of war.  Ex officio, as the agent of the Chippering Mill and a man of substance to boot, he was “in” politics, hail fellow well met with and an individual to be taken into account by politicians from the governor and member of congress down.  He was efficient, of course; he had efficient hands and shrewd, efficient eyes, and the military impression was deepened by his manner of dealing with people, his conversation being yea, yea and nay, nay,—­save with his cronies and those of the other sex from whom he had something to gain.  His clothes always looked new, of pronounced patterns and light colours set aside for him by an obsequious tailor in Boston.