"Oh, Lord! This is a new bug now! We'll have the vine-covered cot idea
for a while, anyhow."

"Oh, all right. Scoff if you want to. You'll see."

Time went by. He was doing all the things I have indicated, living in a
kind of whirl of life. At the same time, from time to time, he would
come back to this thought. Once, it is true, I thought it was all over
with the little yellow-haired girl in Philadelphia. He talked of her
occasionally, but less and less. Out on the golf links near Passaic he
met another girl, one of a group that flourished there. I met her. She
was not unpleasing, a bit sensuous, rather attractive in dress and
manners, not very well informed, but gay, clever, up-to-date; such a
girl as would pass among other women as fairly satisfactory.

For a time Peter seemed greatly attracted to her. She danced, played a
little, was fair at golf and tennis, and she was, or pretended to be,
intensely interested in him. He confessed at last that he believed he
was in love with her.

"So it's all day with Philadelphia, is it?" I asked.

"It's a shame," he replied, "but I'm afraid so. I'm having a hell of a
time with myself, my alleged conscience, I tell you."

I heard little more about it. He had a fad for collecting rings at this
time, a whole casket full, like a Hindu prince, and he told me once he
was giving her her choice of them.