“Yes,” said Montague, “I think so.”

CHAPTER XVII

The summer wore on.  At the end of August Alice returned from Newport for a couple of days, having some shopping to do before she joined the Prentices at their camp in the Adirondacks.

Society had here a new way of enjoying itself.  People built themselves elaborate palaces in the wilderness, and lived in a fantastic kind of rusticity, with every luxury of civilisation included.  For this life one needed an entirely separate wardrobe, with doeskin hunting-boots and mountain-climbing skirts—­all very picturesque and expensive.  It reminded Montague of a jest that he had heard about Mrs. Vivie Patton, whose husband had complained of the expensiveness of her costumes, and requested her to wear simpler dresses.  “Very well,” she said, “I will get a lot of simple dresses immediately.”

Alice spent one evening at home, and she took her cousin into her confidence.  “I’ve an idea, Allan, that Harry Curtiss is going to ask me to marry him.  I thought it was right to tell you about it.”

“I’ve had a suspicion of it,” said Montague, smiling.

“Harry has a feeling you don’t like him,” said the girl.  “Is that true?”

“No,” replied Montague, “not precisely that.”  He hesitated.

“I don’t understand about it,” she continued.  “Do you think I ought not to marry him?”

Montague studied her face.  “Tell me,” he said, “have you made up your mind to marry him?”

“No,” she answered, “I cannot say that I have.”

“If you have,” he added, “of course there is no use in my talking about it.”

“I wish you would tell me just what happened between you and him,” exclaimed the girl.

“It was simply,” said Montague, “that I found that Curtiss was doing, in a business way, something which I considered improper.  Other people are doing it, of course—­he has that excuse.”

“Well, he has to earn a living,” said Alice.

“I know,” said the other; “and if he marries, he will have to earn still more of a living.  He will only place himself still tighter in the grip of these forces of corruption.”

“But what did he do?” asked Alice, anxiously.  Montague told her the story.

“But, Allan,” she said, “I don’t see what there is so very bad about that.  Don’t Ryder and Price own the railroad?”

“They own some of it,” said Montague.  “Other people own some.”

“But the other people have to take their chances,” protested the girl; “if they choose to have anything to do with men like that.”

“You are not familiar with business,” said the other, “and you don’t appreciate the situation.  Curtiss was elected a director—­he accepted a position of trust.”

“He simply did it as a favour to Price,” said she.  “If he hadn’t done it, Price would only have got somebody else.  As you say, Allan, I don’t understand much about it, but it seems to me it isn’t fair to blame a young man who has to make his way in the world, and who simply does what he finds everybody else doing.  Of course, you know best about your own affairs; but it always did seem to me that you go out of your way to look for scruples.”