The slightest frown gathered and passed from her brother’s sun-bronzed forehead, but he made no comment.

“Mr. Neergard is a guest, too,” she observed.

“What?” exclaimed Selwyn, in disgust.

“Yes; he came ashore with the Fanes.”

Selwyn flushed a little but went on cutting the pages of the magazine.  When he had finished he flattened the pages between both covers, and said, without raising his eyes: 

“I’m sorry that crowd is to be in evidence.”

“They always are and always will be,” smiled his sister.

He looked up at her:  “Do you mean that anybody else is a guest at Brookminster?”

“Yes, Phil.”

“Alixe?”

“Yes.”

He looked down at the book on his knees and began to furrow the pages absently.

“Phil,” she said, “have you heard anything this summer—­lately—­about the Ruthvens?”

“No.”

“Nothing at all?”

“Not a word.”

“You knew they were at Newport as usual.”

“I took it for granted.”

“And you have heard no rumours?—­no gossip concerning them?  Nothing about a yacht?”

“Where was I to hear it?  What gossip?  What yacht?”

His sister said very seriously:  “Alixe has been very careless.”

“Everybody is.  What of it?”

“It is understood that she and Jack Ruthven have separated.”

He looked up quickly:  “Who told you that?”

“A woman wrote me from Newport. . . .  And Alixe is here and Jack Ruthven is in New York.  Several people have—­I have heard about it from several sources.  I’m afraid it’s true, Phil.”

They looked into each other’s troubled eyes; and he said:  “If she has done this it is the worse of two evils she has chosen.  To live with him was bad enough, but this is the limit.”

“I know it.  She cannot afford to do such a thing again. . . .  Phil, what is the matter with her?  She simply cannot be sane and do such a thing—­can she?”

“I don’t know,” he said.

“Well, I do.  She is not sane.  She has made herself horridly conspicuous among conspicuous people; she has been indiscreet to the outer edge of effrontery.  Even that set won’t stand it always—­especially as their men folk are quite crazy about her, and she leads a train of them about wherever she goes—­the little fool!

“And now, if it’s true, that there’s to be a separation—­what on earth will become of her?  I ask you, Phil, for I don’t know.  But men know what becomes eventually of women who slap the world across the face with over-ringed fingers.

“If—­if there’s any talk about it—­if there’s newspaper talk—­if there’s a divorce—­who will ask her to their houses?  Who will condone this thing?  Who will tolerate it, or her?  Men—­and men only—­the odious sort that fawn on her now and follow her about half-sneeringly.  They’ll tolerate it; but their wives won’t; and the kind of women who will receive and tolerate her are not included in my personal experience.  What a fool she has been!—­good heavens, what a fool!”