He appeared more manly and vigorous now after two months of outdoor life among new friends and interests.
Mrs. Perry smiled.
"I had intended spending the summer in Europe, but found I was missing Cecil too much. Besides, Europe is not what it used to be in the old days. The shadow of war still rests on it. When I returned to New York I wanted to send for Cecil, but Mr. Stevens wrote he was not to be torn away from Western influences so soon. He added that I might be permitted to make them a visit. Cecil has written me of you."
Wondering uncomfortably what the letter could have said, Jeanette flushed.
Equally Mrs. Colter was attracted by the erect figure, the proud head with the short, bright brown hair, the gray-blue eyes. The girl's expression suggested that she was making some kind of an appeal to her, a complete stranger.
Jeanette was wondering if Mrs. Perry would be kind to her when she went back home, so sure was Jeanette that she would soon be freed from her own difficulties by leaving for an Eastern school.
Reading the advertising in one of the current magazines, she had chosen a school on Long Island which she believed she would prefer to any other. This she intended to recommend to her father, and Cecil had told her they had a summer place on Long Island.
As Jeanette moved away she was wondering if Cecil would confide to his mother his suspicion concerning her. Some day she must find out what knowledge he possessed, or believed himself to possess.
There were twenty members of the Club of the Silver Arrow.
A quarter of an hour later the entire number was assembled on the lawn in front of the house.