Hamil reddened.  “You mustn’t ask me to criticise my own kin,” he said.

“No,” she said, “you couldn’t do that....  And Miss Suydam has been more civil recently.  It’s a mean, low, and suspicious thing to say, but I suppose it’s because—­but I don’t think I’ll say it after all.”

“It’s nicer not to,” said Hamil.  They both knew perfectly well that Virginia’s advances were anything but disinterested.  For, alas! even the men of her own entourage were now gravitating toward the Cardross family; Van Tassel Cuyp was continually wrinkling his nose and fixing his dead-blue eyes in that direction; little Colonel Vetchen circled busily round and round that centre of attraction, even Courtlandt Classon evinced an inclination to toddle that way.  Besides Louis Malcourt had arrived; and Virginia had never quite forgotten Malcourt who had made one at a house party in the Adirondacks some years since, although even when he again encountered her, Malcourt had retained no memory of the slim, pallid girl who had for a week been his fellow-guest at Portlaw’s huge camp on Luckless Lake.

* * * * *

“Virginia Suydam is rather an isolated girl,” said Hamil thoughtfully.  “She lives alone; and it is not very gay for a woman alone in the world; not the happiest sort of life....  Virginia has always been very friendly to me—­always.  I hope you will find her amusing.”

“I’m going to her luncheon,” said Cecile calmly.  “It’s quite too absurd for her to feel any more doubt about us socially than we feel about her.  That is why I am going.  Shall we swim?”

He rose; she clasped his offered hand and sprang to her feet, ready for the water again.  But at that instant Malcourt’s dark, handsome head appeared on the crest of a surge close by, and the next moment that young gentleman scrambled aboard the raft, breathing heavily.

“Hello, Cecile!” he gasped; “Hello, Hamil!  Shiela thought it must be you, but I was sceptical.  Whew!  That isn’t much of a swim; I must be out of condition—­”

“Late hours, cards, and highballs,” observed Cecile scornfully.  “You’re horridly smooth and fat, Louis.”

Malcourt turned to Hamil.

“Glad to see you’ve emerged from your shell at last.  The rumour is that you’re working too hard.”

“There’s no similar rumour concerning you,” observed Cecile, who had never made any pretence of liking Malcourt.  “Please swim out to sea, if you’ve nothing more interesting to tell us.  I’ve just managed to decoy Mr. Hamil here and I’d like to converse with him in peace.”

Malcourt, arms folded, balanced himself easily on the raft’s pitching edge and glanced at her with that amiably bored expression characteristic of him when rebuffed by a woman.  On such occasions his eyes resembled the half-closed orbs of a teased but patient cat; and Cecile had once told him so.

“There’s a pretty rumour afloat concerning your last night’s performance at the Beach Club,” said the girl disdainfully.  “A boy like you, making himself conspicuous by his gambling!”