acquired, is not easily shed. Scarcely had he settled down to the belief
that by the gratification of her supreme desire he had achieved
comparative peace, than he began to suspect her native self-confidence of
cherishing visions of a career contemplating nothing less than the
eventual abandonment of Hampton itself as a field too limited for her
social talents and his business ability and bank account--at which she
was pleased to hint. Hampton suited Ditmar, his passion was the
Chippering Mill; and he was in process of steeling himself to resist,
whatever the costs, this preposterous plan when he was mercifully
released by death. Her intention of sending the children away to acquire
a culture and finish Hampton did not afford,--George to Silliston
Academy, Amy to a fashionable boarding school,--he had not opposed, yet
he did not take the idea with sufficient seriousness to carry it out. The
children remained at home, more or less--increasingly less--in the charge
of an elderly woman who acted as housekeeper.

Ditmar had miraculously regained his freedom. And now, when he made trips
to New York and Boston, combining business with pleasure, there were no
questions asked, no troublesome fictions to be composed. More frequently
he was in Boston, where he belonged to a large and comfortable club, not
too exacting in regard to membership, and here he met his cronies and
sometimes planned excursions with them, automobile trips in summer to the
White Mountains or choice little resorts to spend Sundays and holidays,
generally taking with them a case of champagne and several bags of golf
sticks. He was fond of shooting, and belonged to a duck club on the Cape,
where poker and bridge were not tabooed. To his intimates he was known as
"Dit." Nor is it surprising that his attitude toward women had become in
general one of resentment; matrimony he now regarded as unmitigated
folly. At five and forty he was a vital, dominating, dust-coloured man
six feet and half an inch in height, weighing a hundred and ninety