“I mean with brother, of course. He plays so poorly.” She turned to the west—the house faced south—and studied the road which came up from Stroudsburg. “I do believe that’s Harry Kemp,” she added, quite to herself. “If so, he’ll have my mail, if there is any.”
She got up again and disappeared into the house, coming out a few moments later to saunter down to the gate, which was over a hundred feet away. To Cowperwood she seemed to float, so hale and graceful was she. A smart youth in blue serge coat, white trousers, and white shoes drove by in a high-seated trap.
“Two letters for you,” he called, in a high, almost falsetto voice. “I thought you would have eight or nine. Blessed hot, isn’t it?” He had a smart though somewhat effeminate manner, and Cowperwood at once wrote him down as an ass. Berenice took the mail with an engaging smile. She sauntered past him reading, without so much as a glance. Presently he heard her voice within.
“Mother, the Haggertys have invited me for the last week in August. I have half a mind to cut Tuxedo and go. I like Bess Haggerty.”
“Well, you’ll have to decide that, dearest. Are they going to be at Tarrytown or Loon Lake?”
“Loon Lake, of course,” came Berenice’s voice.
What a world of social doings she was involved in, thought Cowperwood. She had begun well. The Haggertys were rich coal-mine operators in Pennsylvania. Harris Haggerty, to whose family she was probably referring, was worth at least six or eight million. The social world they moved in was high.
They drove after dinner to The Saddler, at Saddler’s Run, where a dance and “moonlight promenade” was to be given. On the way over, owing to the remoteness of Berenice, Cowperwood for the first time in his life felt himself to be getting old. In spite of the vigor of his mind and body, he realized constantly that he was over fifty-two, while she was only seventeen. Why should this lure of youth continue to possess him? She wore a white concoction of lace and silk which showed a pair of smooth young shoulders and a slender, queenly, inimitably modeled neck. He could tell by the sleek lines of her arms how strong she was.
“It is perhaps too late,” he said to himself, in comment. “I am getting old.”
The freshness of the hills in the pale night was sad.