Montague stood for a while staring; and then took to watching the company, who chattered and laughed all through the performance.  Afterward, he strolled into the billiard-room, where Billy Price and Chauncey Venable were having an exciting bout; and from there to the smoking-room, where the stout little Major had gotten a group of young bloods about him to play “Klondike.”  This was a game of deadly hazards, which they played without limit; the players themselves were silent and impassive, but the spectators who gathered about were tense with excitement.

In the morning Charlie Carter carried off Alice and Oliver and Betty in his auto; and Montague spent his time in trying some of Havens’s jumping horses.  The Horse Show was to open in New York on Monday, and there was an atmosphere of suppressed excitement because of this prospect; Mrs. Caroline Smythe, a charming young widow, strolled about with him and told him all about this Show, and the people who would take part in it.

And in the afternoon Major Venable took him for a stroll and showed him the grounds.  He had been told what huge sums had been expended in laying them out; but after all, the figures were nothing compared with an actual view.  There were hills and slopes, and endless vistas of green lawns and gardens, dotted with the gleaming white of marble staircases and fountains and statuary.  There was a great Italian walk, leading by successive esplanades to an electric fountain with a basin sixty feet across, and a bronze chariot and marble horses.  There were sunken gardens, with a fountain brought from the South of France, and Greek peristyles, and seats of marble, and vases and other treasures of art.

And then there were the stables; a huge Renaissance building, with a perfectly equipped theatre above.  There was a model farm and dairy; a polo-field, and an enclosed riding-ring for the children; and dog-kennels and pigeon-houses, greenhouses and deer-parks—­one was prepared for bear-pits and a menagerie.  Finally, on their way back, they passed the casino, where musical chimes pealed out the quarter-hours.  Montague stopped and gazed up at the tower from which the sounds had come.

The more he gazed, the more he found to gaze at The roof of this building had many gables, in the Queen Anne style; and from the midst of them shot up the tower, which was octagonal and solid, suggestive of the Normans.  It was decorated with Christmas-wreaths in white stucco, and a few miscellaneous ornaments like the gilded tassels one sees upon plush curtains.  Overtopping all of this was the dome of a Turkish mosque.  Rising out of the dome was something that looked like a dove-cot; and out of this rose the slender white steeple of a Methodist country church.  On top of that was a statue of Diana.

“What are you looking at?” asked the Major.

“Nothing,” said Montague, as he moved on.  “Has there ever been any insanity in the Havens family?”