He noted, as he came nearer, swinging along down the slope and seeing
the little valley with its green meadow and azure lake, how Ben had had
a log dam thrown across the pond's lower end, backing up the water and
making it widen out; he saw a couple of graceful canoes resting
tranquilly on their own reflections; a pretty bathing-house already
green with lusty hop-vines. Ben Gaynor had been spending money, a good
deal of money. And no one knew better than Mark King that Ben had been
close-hauled these latter years. He shrugged, telling himself to pull up
short, and not find fault with his friend, or what his friend did, or
with those whom his friend loved.

An hour later he came to the grove of sugar-pines back of the house.
Here he paused a moment, though he was all eagerness for his meeting
with Gaynor. He had seen a number of persons coming out of the house, a
dozen or more, pouring out brightly, as gay as butterflies, men and
women. Their laughter floated out to him through the still sunny
morning, the deeper notes of men, a cluster of rippling notes from a
girl. He wanted to see Gaynor, not a lot of Gaynor's San Francisco
guests. No, not Gaynor's; rather the friends of Gaynor's womenfolk. It
was King's hope that they were going down toward the lake; thus he would
avoid meeting them. He'd come in at the back, have his talk with Ben,
and be on his way without the bore of shaking a lot of flabby hands and
listening to a lot of gushing exclamations.

He stood very still where he was, unseen as he leaned against a
light-and-shadow-dappled pine. A girl broke away from the knot of
summer-clad figures, ran a few steps down the path toward the lake,
poised gracefully, executed a stagy little pose with head back and arms
outflung as though in an ecstasy of delight that the world was so fair.
She was a bright spot of colour with her pink dress and white shoes and