"When he is ready to settle down that's what he'll do—pick out some woman with barrels of money," said Andrew. Having once got a proposition in his head he was wont to stick to it tenaciously, like a puppy to a root.
"You misjudge him—you misjudge him!" cried Mrs. Cole eagerly. "He won't do anything of the kind. He will never marry any woman unless she has money—or he has; that I'm ready to admit. But, on the other hand, he'll never ask anyone to marry him unless he loves her for herself alone, and—and," she continued with a gasp born of the thrill which the definiteness of her insight caused her, "there are very few women in the world whom he is liable to fall in love with. That's what makes him so interesting. He is polite to us all, but the majority of women bore him at heart."
Marcy laughed. "A masterly diagnosis," he said. "And now that he has seen the world and is returning heart-free, so far as we know, there will naturally be curiosity as to how he will bear the ordeal of a fresh contact with native loveliness."
"Exactly," said the two women together, and with an engaging frankness which quite overshadowed the grunt by which the master of the house indicated his suspicious dissent from this exposition of character.
IV
Harry Spencer had been travelling nearly three years. Naturally, he found some changes and some new faces at Westfield. Concerning the former he was becomingly appreciative. He promptly ranged himself on the side of progress, admired the new club-house and the new establishments in the neighborhood, and evinced a willingness to take an active part in the enlarged energies of the club. During his peregrinations in foreign lands he had visited the St. Andrew's golf links, and he had views regarding bunkers and other features of the game which he was prepared to advocate. When he had left home the bicycle was all the rage, and some portion of his journeyings had been on an up-to-date machine. But he found now that the fashionable portion of the community had dropped this craze, and that to ride a "wheel" was beginning to be considered a bore except as a means of getting from one place to another. The fever of golf was rampant instead, and had reached the stage where its votaries were almost delirious in their devotion, notably the people most unfitted to play the game, and who had taken it up in order to be in fashion. During the spring and summer following his return the improved links at Westfield was crowded with players of every grade whose proficiency was generally in reverse proportion to the number of clubs they carried.
Soon after the season had fairly opened and the greens were in good order the lately returned wanderer found himself one morning engaged in giving a lesson in the royal and ancient game to Miss Peggy Blake, who had a severe attack of the disease and promised to be a proficient pupil, for Dobson, the professional at the Hunt Club, had declared that she had a free swing and could follow through as well as most men. The trouble at the moment was that, after taking a free swing, she either failed to hit the ball altogether or hit it off at some distressing angle. As she explained volubly to everybody, until within a week she had been making screaming brassie shots which carried a hundred and fifty yards, but had suddenly lost her game completely. Harry had kindly offered himself as a coach, a delightful proposition to the blithe young woman, especially as Dobson was engaged for the time being in superintending the primary and elephantine efforts of Miss Ella Marbury, the stout maiden sister of Wagner Marbury, the Western multi-millionnaire and proprietor of one of the new neighboring palaces so obnoxious to Mrs. Cunningham. Miss Peggy was more than pleased to have for an hour or two the uninterrupted companionship of this good-looking and redoubtable gallant, whose attentions were to be regarded as a feather in her cap, and who would doubtless be able to tell her what she was doing wrong.