"Perhaps it's because we turned off on to the Ridge Road; they've probably taken the shorter main road by the railroad tracks. I think we'd better ride on, Ted."
Satan, although partly refreshed, allowed me to mount with an ill grace; he gave a longing look backward whence we had come, and set forth after Helen's Titania, his head bowed in gloom. Sprinkled along the ridge, whose crest the road followed, were prosperous-looking farms. The villages and small towns clung closely to the railway which ran along the flat shelf between the ridge and the lake. The remarkable straightness and uniformity of the ridge indicated that it had itself at one time been the lakeshore in the days when even this great lake had been larger. After the close confinement to Deep Harbor it was glorious to ride in the open country with a road stretching indefinitely before one. I so far forgot my aches and pains as to burst into a popular music-hall song, to which Satan listened attentively through one ear turned backwards towards me. As I finished, Helen said: "I'm sorry I'm not musical, Ted, but I'm quite sure you have one of the worst voices I've ever heard." I was not mortified; my efforts at song always met with a like reception. Only extreme good spirits provoked me to melodious utterance. In general, I was careful to remember this particular limitation. I apologetically explained the reason for my peculiar behaviour. "It was partly the fact that we are rid of the others for a time," I continued. "All things seem to make for good."
"You won't think so when you hear what Miss Hershey says about it."
"Miss Hershey?"
"Yes, the stout old maid on the white horse. She is a sort of professional chaperone for our crowd. The boys always draw lots before we go anywhere to see which one of them will be her escort. It is the loser who has that pleasure. Mother whispered many private instructions to her this morning."
"I shall make love to Miss Hershey at the first opportunity."
"It can't be done," laughed Helen. "It has been tried."
"You called her a professional chaperon—just what do you mean?"
"Just that. She is a social secretary, and all our mothers hire her to get up dances and to look after parties like ours today. She is dreadfully strict, naturally, since her bread and butter depends upon it."
"What an extraordinary business," I exclaimed. Here, indeed, was an inversion, so to speak of woman's oldest profession—a thought which could not be told to a débutante. "I've heard of Spanish duennas," I went on, "but I never knew you could go out into the market place and hire one at so much an hour."