awkward age, or is that sixteen; perhaps it's fourteen or fifteen;
I can never remember; but you've skipped it."

"Don't embarrass me," murmured Amory.

"But, my dear boy, what odd clothes! They look as if they were a _set_--
don't they? Is your underwear purple, too?"

Amory grunted impolitely.

"You must go to Brooks' and get some really nice suits. Oh, we'll have a
talk to-night or perhaps to-morrow night. I want to tell you about your
heart--you've probably been neglecting your heart--and you don't _know_."

Amory thought how superficial was the recent overlay of his own
generation. Aside from a minute shyness, he felt that the old cynical
kinship with his mother had not been one bit broken. Yet for the first
few days he wandered about the gardens and along the shore in a state of
superloneliness, finding a lethargic content in smoking "Bull" at the
garage with one of the chauffeurs.

The sixty acres of the estate were dotted with old and new summer houses
and many fountains and white benches that came suddenly into sight from
foliage-hung hiding-places; there was a great and constantly increasing
family of white cats that prowled the many flower-beds and were
silhouetted suddenly at night against the darkening trees. It was on
one of the shadowy paths that Beatrice at last captured Amory, after
Mr. Blaine had, as usual, retired for the evening to his private library.
After reproving him for avoiding her, she took him for a long tete-a-tete
in the moonlight. He could not reconcile himself to her beauty, that