wonder you didn't get the secret at once from your Mr. Deering.
Have you been supposing that Miss Gage was a poor girl whom the
Deerings had done the favour of bringing with them?"

"Why, what of it?" I asked provisionally.

"She is very well off. Her father is not only the president, as
they call it, of the village, but he's the president of the bank."

"Yes; I told you that Deering told me so--"

"But he is very queer. He has kept her very close from the other
young people, and Mrs. Deering is the only girl friend she's ever
had, and she's grown up without having been anywhere without him.
They had to plead with him to let her come with them--or Mrs.
Deering had,--but when he once consented, he consented handsomely.
He gave her a lot of money, and told them he wanted her to have the
best time that money could buy; and of course you can understand how
such a man would think that money would buy a good time anywhere.
But the Deerings didn't know how to go about it. She confessed as
much when we were talking the girl over. I could see that she stood
in awe of her somehow from the beginning, and that she felt more
than the usual responsibility for her. That was the reason she was
so eager to get her husband off home; as long as he was with them
she would have to work everything through him, and that would be
double labour, because he is so hopelessly villaginous, don't you
know, that he never could rise to the conception of anything else.
He took them to a cheap, second-class hotel, and he was afraid to go
with them anywhere because he never was sure that it was the right
thing to do; and he was too proud to ask, and they had to keep