In Her Own Right Part 12

"Can I come down to-night? Answer to Bellevue-Stratford."

His reply brought Macloud in the morning train.

Croyden met him at the station. Moses took his bag, and they walked out to Clarendon.

"Sorry I haven't a car!" said Croyden--then he laughed. "The truth is, Colin, they're not popular down here. The old families won't have them--they're innovations--the saddle horse and the family carriage are still to the fore with them. Only the butcher, and the baker and the candlestick maker have motors. There's one, now--he's the candlestick maker, I think. This town is nothing if not conservative. It reminds me of the one down South, where they wouldn't have electric cars. Finally all the street car horses died. Then rather than commit the awful sin of letting _new_ horses come into the city, they accepted the trolley.

The fashion suits my pocketbook, however, so I've no kick coming."

"What do you want with a car here, anyway?" Macloud asked. "It looks as if you could walk from one end of the town to the other in fifteen minutes."

"You can, easily."

"And the baker et cetera have theirs only for show, I suppose?"

"Yes, that's about it--the roads, hereabout, are sandy and poor."

"Then, I'm with your old families. They may be conservative, at times a trifle too much so, but, in the main, their judgment's pretty reliable, according to conditions. What sort of place did you find--I mean the house?"

"Very fair!"

"And the society?"

"Much better than Northumberland."

"Hum--I see--the aristocracy of birth, not dollars."

"Exactly!--How do you do, Mr. Fitzhugh," as they pa.s.sed a policeman in uniform.

"Good morning, Mr. Croyden!" was the answer.

"There! that ill.u.s.trates," said Croyden. "You meet Fitzhugh every place when he is off duty. He _belongs_. His occupation does not figure, in the least."

"So you like it--Hampton, I mean?" said Macloud.

"I've been here a month--and that month I've enjoyed--thoroughly enjoyed. However, I do miss the Clubs and their life."

"I can understand," Macloud interjected.

"And the ability to get, instantly, anything you want----"

"Much of which you don't want--and wouldn't get, if you had to write for it, or even to walk down town for it--which makes for economy,"

observed Macloud sententiously.

"But, more than either, I miss the personal isolation which one can have in a big town, when he wishes it--and has always, in some degree."

"And _that_ gets on your nerves!" laughed Macloud. "Well, you won't mind it after a while, I think. You'll get used to it, and be quite oblivious. Is that all your objections?"

"I've been here only a short time, remember. Come back in six months, say, and I may have kicks in plenty."

"You may find it a bit dreary in winter--who the deuce is that girl yonder, Geoffrey?" he broke off.

They were opposite Carrington's, and down the walk toward the gate was coming the maid of the blue-black hair, and slender ankles. She wore a blue linen gown, a black hat, and her face was framed by a white silk parasol.

"That is Miss Carrington," said Croyden.

"Hum!--Your house near here?"

"Yes--pretty near."

Macloud looked at him with a grin.

"She has nothing to do with your liking the town, I suppose?" he said, knowingly.

"Well, she's not exactly a deterrent--and there are half a dozen more of the same sort. Oh, on that score, Hampton's not half bad, my friend!" he laughed.

"You mean there are half a dozen of _that_ sort," with a slight jerk of his head toward Miss Carrington, "who are unmarried?"

Croyden nodded--then looked across; and both men raised their hats and bowed.

"And how many married?" Macloud queried.

"Several--but you let them _alone_--it's not fashionable here, as yet, for a pretty married woman to have an affair. She loves her husband, or acts it, at least. They're neither prudes nor prigs, but they are not _that_."

"So far as you know!" laughed Macloud. "But my experience has been that the pretty married woman who won't flirt, if occasion offers where there is no danger of being compromised, is a pretty scarce article.

However, Hampton may be an exception."

"You're too cynical," said Croyden. "We turn in here--this is Clarendon."

"Why! you beggar!" Macloud exclaimed. "I've been sympathizing with you, because I thought you were living in a shack-of-a-place--and, behold!"

"Yes, it is not bad," said Croyden. "I've no ground for complaint, on that head. I can, at least, be comfortable here. It's not bad inside, either."

That evening, after dinner, when the two men were sitting in the library while a short-lived thunder storm raged outside, Macloud, after a long break in the conversation--which is the surest sign of camaraderie among men--observed, apropos of nothing except the talk of the morning:

"Lord! man, you've got no kick coming!"

"Who said I had?" Croyden demanded.

"You did, by d.a.m.ning it with faint praise."

"d.a.m.ning what?"

"Your present environment--and yet, look you! A comfortable house, fine grounds, beautiful old furnishings, delicious victuals, and two negro servants, who are devoted to you, or the place--no matter which, for it a.s.sures their permanence; the one a marvelous cook, the other a competent man; and, by way of society, a lot of fine, old antebellum families, with daughters like the Symphony in Blue, we saw this morning. G.o.d! you're hard to please."

"And that is not all," said Croyden, laughing and pointing to the portraits. "I've got ancestors--by purchase."

"And you have come by them clean-handed, which is rare.--Moreover, I fancy you are one who has them by inheritance, as well."

Croyden nodded. "I'm glad to say I have--ancestors are distinctly fashionable down here. But _that's_ not all I've got."