Nevertheless, the ball given at the Griswold would have been joy unalloyed but for one fly in the pot of ointment:  A most insistent, buzzing fly, too, in the form of Mrs. Peyton Stewart.

Perhaps while all the world is a-tiptoe in the packed ballroom, or crowding the broad piazzas of the hotel, this will be an opportune moment in which to drop a word regarding Mrs. Peyton Stewart.

As lads, Neil Stewart and his brother had been devotedly attached to each other.  Peyton was five years Neil’s junior, and Neil fairly adored the bright little lad.  Naturally, Neil had entered the Naval Academy while Peyton was still a small boy at boarding-school.  Then Peyton went to college and at the ripe age of twenty-two, married.

Had the marriage been a wise one, or one likely to help make a man of the heedless, harum-scarum Peyton, his family, and his brother, would probably have accepted the situation with as good a grace as possible.  But it was not wise:  it was the very essence of folly, for the girl was nearer Neil’s age than Peyton’s, and came of a family which could never have had anything in common with Peyton Stewart’s.  She was also entirely frivolous, if not actually designing.  Neil was the only member of his family who attended the wedding, which took place in a small New Jersey town, and, as has been stated, had seen his undesirable sister-in-law only twice after her wedding-day.  Upon one occasion by accident, and upon the last at his brother’s death, only two years after the marriage, and had then and there resolved never to see her again if he could possibly help it, for never had one person rubbed another the wrong way as had Mrs. Peyton rubbed her brother-in-law.

Naturally, Peyton had received his share of his inheritance upon the death of his parents, but Neil had inherited Severndale, so while Madam Peyton Stewart was not by any means lacking in worldly goods, she had nothing like the income her brother-in-law enjoyed.  But she was by no means short-sighted, and like a flash several thoughts had entered her head when chance brought her in touch with him.  She had never been of the type which lets a good opportunity slip for lack of prompt action, so in spite of her hostess’ rather excited frame of mind as the result of the afternoon’s accident, she persuaded her to attend the ball at the Griswold that evening.

She must have something to divert her thoughts from the horror of that precious child’s disaster and miraculous rescue from death, she urged, that same child, as a matter of fact, being as gay and chipper as though a header from the stern of a crowded launch into a more crowded river was a mere daily incident in her life.

So there sat Madam, gorgeous in white satin and silver, plying her fan and her tongue with equal energy.

Presently Peggy danced by with Durand, not a few eyes following the beautiful young girl and handsome boy, and to an individual those who saw them decided that they were brother and sister.  This was Mrs. Stewart’s opportunity and she made the most of it:  Turning to a lady beside her she gurgled: