"No," said Austen, and added with an illuminating smile, "Mr. Crewe doesn't need any help."

"I'm glad you're not," exclaimed the downright Hastings, with palpable relief in his voice that an idol had not been shattered. "I think Humphrey's a fakir, and all this sort of thing tommyrot. He wouldn't get my vote by giving me lemonade and cake and letting me look at his cows.

If you ever run for office, I'd like to cast it for you. My father is only a summer resident, but since he has gone out of business he stays here till Christmas, and I'll be twenty-one in a year."

Austen had ceased to smile; he was looking into the boy's eyes with that serious expression which men and women found irresistible.

"Thank you, Mr. Weare," he said simply.

Hastings was suddenly overcome with the shyness of youth. He held out his hand, and said, "I'm awfully glad to have met you," and fled.

Victoria, who had looked on with a curious mixture of feelings, turned to Austen.

"That was a real tribute," she said. "Is this the way you affect everybody whom you meet?"

They were standing almost alone. The sun was nearing the western hills beyond the river, and people had for some time been wending their way towards the field where the horses were tied. He did not answer her question, but asked one instead.

"Will you let me drive you home?"

"Do you think you deserve to, after the shameful manner in which you have behaved?"

"I'm quite sure that I don't deserve to," he answered, still looking down at her.

"If you did deserve to, being a woman, I probably shouldn't let you,"

said Victoria, flashing a look upwards; "as it is, you may."

His face lighted, but she halted in the grass, with her hands behind her, and stared at him with a puzzled expression.

"I'm sure you're a dangerous man," she declared. "First you take in poor little Hastings, and now you're trying to take me in."

"Then I wish I were still more dangerous," he laughed, "for apparently I haven't succeeded."

"I want to talk to you seriously," said Victoria; "that is the only reason I'm permitting you to drive me home."

"I am devoutly thankful for the reason then," he said,--"my horse is tied in the field."

"And aren't you going to say good-by to your host and hostess?"

"Hostess?" he repeated, puzzled.

"Hostesses," she corrected herself, "Mrs. Pomfret and Alice. I thought you had eyes in your head," she added, with a fleeting glance at them.

"Is Crewe engaged to Miss Pomfret?" he asked.

"Are all men simpletons?" said Victoria. "He doesn't know it yet, but he is."

"I think I'd know it, if I were," said Austen, with an emphasis that made her laugh.

"Sometimes fish don't know they're in a net until--until the morning after," said Victoria. "That has a horribly dissipated sound--hasn't it? I know to a moral certainty that Mr. Crewe will eventually lead Miss Pomfret away from the altar. At present," she could not refrain from adding, "he thinks he's in love with some one else."

"Who?"

"It doesn't matter," she replied. "Humphrey's perfectly happy, because he believes most women are in love with him, and he's making up his mind in that magnificent, thorough way of his whether she is worthy to be endowed with his heart and hand, his cows, and all his stocks and bonds. He doesn't know he's going to marry Alice. It almost makes one a Calvinist, doesn't it. He's predestined, but perfectly happy."

"Who is he in love with?" demanded Austen, ungrammatically.

"I'm going to say good-by to him. I'll meet you in the field, if you don't care to come. It's only manners, after all, although the lemonade's all gone and I haven't had a drop."

"I'll go along too," he said.

"Aren't you afraid of Mrs. Pomfret?"

"Not a bit!"

"I am," said Victoria, "but I think you'd better come just the same."

Around the corner of the house they found them,--Mr. Crewe urging the departing guests to remain, and not to be bashful in the future about calling.

"We don't always have lemonade and cake," he was saying, "but you can be sure of a welcome, just the same. Good-by, Vane, glad you came. Did they show you through the stables? Did you see the mate to the horse I lost?

Beauty, isn't he? Stir 'em up and get the money. I guess we won't see much of each other politically. You're anti-railroad. I don't believe that tack'll work--we can't get along without corporations, you know.

You ought to talk to Flint. I'll give you a letter of introduction to him. I don't know what I'd have done without that man Tooting in your father's office. He's a wasted genius in Ripton. What? Good-by, you'll find your wagon, I guess. Well, Victoria, where have you been keeping yourself? I've been so busy I haven't had time to look for you. You're going to stay to dinner, and Hastings, and all the people who have helped."

"No, I'm not," answered Victoria, with a glance at Austen, before whom this announcement was so delicately made, "I'm going home."

"But when am I to see you?" cried Mr. Crewe, as near genuine alarm as he ever got. "You never let me see you. I was going to drive you home in the motor by moonlight."

"We all know that you're the most original person, Victoria," said Mrs.

Pomfret, "full of whims and strange fancies," she added, with the only brief look at Austen she had deigned to bestow on him. "It never pays to count on you for twenty-four hours. I suppose you're off on another wild expedition."

"I think I've earned the right to it," said Victoria;--"I've poured lemonade for Humphrey's constituents the whole afternoon. And besides, I never said I'd stay for dinner. I'm going home. Father's leaving for California in the morning."

"He'd better stay at home and look after her," Mrs. Pomfret remarked, when Victoria was out of hearing.

"Since Mrs. Harry Haynes ran off, one can never tell what a woman will do. It wouldn't surprise me a bit if Victoria eloped with a handsome nobody like that. Of course he's after her money, but he wouldn't get it, not if I know Augustus Flint."

"Is he handsome?" said Mr. Crewe, as though the idea were a new one.

"Great Scott, I don't believe she gives him a thought. She's only going as far as the field with him. She insisted on leaving her horse there instead of putting him in the stable."

"Catch Alice going as far as the field with him," said Mrs. Pomfret, "but I've done my duty. It's none of my affair."

In the meantime Austen and Victoria had walked on some distance in silence.

"I have an idea with whom Mr. Crewe is in love," he said at length.

"So have I," replied Victoria, promptly. "Humphrey's in love with himself. All he desires in a wife--if he desires one--is an inanimate and accommodating looking-glass, in whom he may see what he conceives to be his own image daily. James, you may take the mare home. I'm going to drive with Mr. Vane."

She stroked Pepper's nose while Austen undid the hitch-rope from around his neck.

"You and I are getting to be friends, aren't we, Pepper?" she asked, as the horse, with quivering nostrils, thrust his head into her hand. Then she sprang lightly into the buggy by Austen's side. The manner of these acts and the generous courage with which she defied opinion appealed to him so strongly that his heart was beating faster than Pepper's hoof-beats on the turf of the pasture.