“Dear Mrs. Cardross,” he said, taking a vacant chair beside her hammock, “I really am perfectly well and perfectly acclimated, and I enjoy every moment of the day whether here as your guest or in the saddle with your husband or in the office over the plans—­”

“But you are always at work!” she drawled; “we never see you.”

“But that’s why I am here,” he insisted, smiling.

“Neville,” she interrupted calmly; “no boy of his age ought to kill himself.  Listen to me; when Neville and I were married we had very little, and he began by laying his plans to work every moment.  But we had an understanding,” she added blandly; “I explained that I did not intend to grow old with a wreck of a man.  Now you may see the result of our understanding,” nodding toward her amazingly youthful husband.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” observed Cardross, still looking through his field-glasses.  “There’s a baby-show next week and I’ll enter if you like, my dear.”

Mrs. Cardross smiled and took Hamil’s hand flat between her fair, pudgy palms.

“We want you here,” she said kindly, “not because it is a matter of convenience, but because we like you.  Be a little more amiable, Mr. Hamil; you never give us a moment during the day or after dinner.  You haven’t been to a dance yet; you never go to the beach, you never motor or sail or golf.  Don’t you like my children?”

“Like them!  I adore them,” he said, laughing, “but how can—­”

“I’m going to take him camping,” observed Cardross, interrupting.  “I want some duck-shooting; don’t you, Hamil?”

“Of course I do, but—­”

“Then we start this week for the woods—­”

“I won’t let you,” interposed his wife; “you’ll talk that boy to death with your plans and surveys!”

“No, I’ll promise to talk shooting every moment, and do a little of it, too.  What do you say, Hamil?  Gray will go with us.  Are you game?”

“I’d love to, but I promised Malcourt that—­”

“Oh, nonsense!  Louis can wait for you to go North and lay out Mr. Portlaw’s park.  I’ve the first call on you; I’ve got you for the winter here—­”

“But Portlaw says—­”

“Oh, bother Mr. Portlaw!  We’ll take him along, too, if he can tear himself away from the Beach Club long enough to try less dangerous game.”

Since Malcourt’s arrival he and Portlaw had joyously waded into whatever gaiety offered, neck-deep; Portlaw had attached himself to the Club with all the deliberation of a born gourmet and a hopeless gambler; Malcourt roamed society and its suburbs, drifting from set to set and from coterie to coterie, always an opportunist, catholic in his tastes, tolerant of anything where pretty women were inclined to be amiable.  And they often were so inclined.