False Dawn (The 'Forties)

OLD NEW YORK
FALSE DAWN ( The ’Forties ) By EDITH WHARTON
( The ’Forties ) BY EDITH WHARTON AUTHOR OF “THE AGE OF INNOCENCE,” ETC. DECORATIONS BY E. C. CASWELL
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY NEW YORK :: LONDON :: MCMXXIV COPYRIGHT, 1924, BY D. APPLETON AND COMPANY Copyright, 1923, by The Curtis Publishing Company PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA



HAY, verbena and mignonette scented the languid July day. Large strawberries, crimsoning through sprigs of mint, floated in a bowl of pale yellow cup on the verandah table: an old Georgian bowl, with complex reflections on polygonal flanks, engraved with the Raycie arms between lions’ heads. Now and again the gentlemen, warned by a menacing hum, slapped their cheeks, their brows or their bald crowns; but they did so as furtively as possible, for Mr. Halston Raycie, on whose verandah they sat, would not admit that there were mosquitoes at High Point.
The strawberries came from Mr. Raycie’s kitchen garden; the Georgian bowl came from his great-grandfather (father of the Signer); the verandah was that of his country-house, which stood on a height above the Sound, at a convenient driving distance from his town house in Canal Street.
“Another glass, Commodore,” said Mr. Raycie, shaking out a cambric handkerchief the size of a table-cloth, and applying a corner of it to his steaming brow.
Mr. Jameson Ledgely smiled and took another glass. He was known as “the Commodore” among his intimates because of having been in the Navy in his youth, and having taken part, as a midshipman under Admiral Porter, in the war of 1812. This jolly sunburnt bachelor, whose face resembled that of one of the bronze idols he might have brought back with him, had kept his naval air, though long retired from the service; and his white duck trousers, his gold-braided cap and shining teeth, still made him look as if he might be in command of a frigate. Instead of that, he had just sailed over a party of friends from his own place on the Long Island shore; and his trim white sloop was now lying in the bay below the point.