cleanness, that wholesomeness that had so appealed to Marvin--that
somehow Madison found he was taking a delight in responding to, and,
because it afforded him whimsical pleasure, chose to pretend that he was
quite a genuine exponent of it himself.

He reached the end of the wagon track, and paused involuntarily on the
edge of the Patriarch's lawn as he came out from the trees. Like low,
lulling music came the distant, mellowed noise of waters, the breaking
surf. And the cottage was a bower of green now, clothed in ivy and
vine--upon the trellises the early roses were budding--fragrance of
growing things blended with the salt, invigorating breeze from the
ocean. And upon the lawn, flanked with its sturdy maples, all in leaf,
that toned the sunshine in soft-falling shadows, stood, or sat, or
reclined on cots, the supplicants who still tarried though the Patriarch
had gone. And now one came reverently out of the cottage door from that
room that was never closed; now another went in--and still another.

Madison smiled suddenly, broadly, with immense satisfaction and
contentment--and then his eyes fixed quite as suddenly on the
single-seated buggy that was coming toward him on the driveway across
the lawn. That was Mamie Rodgers driving--and that was Helena beside
her.

Madison recalled instantly the object of his visit--and instantly he
whistled a rather surprised little whistle under his breath. How
alluringly Helena's brown hair coiled in wavy wealth upon her head;
there wasn't any need of rouge for color in the oval face; the dark eyes
were soft and deep and glorious; and she sat there in a little white
muslin frock as dainty as a medallion from a master's brush.