Mr. Stott was a rising young attorney of forty-eight, and it was anticipated that he would one day be a leading trial lawyer because of his aggressiveness.
Wallie's voice took on a sympathetic tone. He stopped in front of a chair where a very thin young lady was reclining languidly.
"How's the bad heart to-day, Miss Eyester?"
"About as usual, Wallie, thank you," she replied, gratefully.
"Your lips have more colour."
Miss Eyester opened a handbag and, taking out a small, round mirror which she carried for the purpose, inspected her lips critically.
"It does seem so," she admitted. "If I can just keep from getting excited."
"I can't imagine a better place than The Colonial." The reply contained a grain of irony.
"That's why I come here," Miss Eyester sighed, "though I'm pining to go somewhere livelier."
Wallie wagged his head playfully.
"Treason! Treason! Why, you've been coming here for--" Miss Eyester's alarmed expression caused him to finish lamely--"for ever so long."
"Wallie!" It was his aunt's voice calling and he went instantly to a tall, austere lady in a linen collar who was knitting wash-rags with the feverish haste of a piece-worker in a factory.
He stood before her obediently.
"Don't go in to-day."
"Why, Auntie?" In his voice there was a world of disappointment.
"It's too rough--there must have been a storm at sea."
"But, Auntie," he protested, "I missed yesterday, taking Mrs. Appel to the auction. It isn't very rough----"
"Look at the white-caps," she interrupted, curtly, "I don't want you to go, Wallie."
"Oh, very well." He turned away abruptly, wondering if she realized how keenly he was disappointed--a disappointment that was not made less by the fact that her fears were groundless, since not only was it not "rough" but he was an excellent swimmer.
"The girl from Wyoming," as he called Miss Spenceley to himself, had overheard and was looking at him with an expression in her eyes which made him redden. It was mocking; she was laughing at him for being told not to go in bathing, as if he were a child of seven.
He sauntered past her, humming, to let her know that he did not care what she thought about him. When he turned around she had vanished and a few minutes after he saw her with her suit over her arm on the way to the bath-house on the exclusive beach in front of The Colonial.