So she was glad of the talk about obligation. It set
him at a distance, immediately. He ceased to look
lovingly, to indulge in the nerve-rasping little caresses.
He became carefully formal. He was evidently eager
to prove the sincerity of his protestations--too eager
perhaps, her perverse mind suggested. Still, sincere
or not, he held to all the forms of sincerity.
Some friends of Mrs. Brindley's who were going
abroad offered her their cottage on the New Jersey
coast near Seabright, and a big new touring-car and
chauffeur. She and Mildred at once gave up the plan
for a summer in the Adirondacks, the more readily as
several of the men and women they saw the most of
lived within easy distance of them at Deal Beach and
Elberon. When Mildred went shopping she was lured
into buying a lot of summer things she would not have
needed in the Adirondacks--a mere matter of two
hundred and fifty dollars or thereabouts. A little
additional economy in the fall would soon make up for such
a trifle, and if there is one time more than another when
a woman wishes to look well and must look well, that
time is summer--especially by the sea.
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