madness after all, a quiet mania which sought out the soul of things
and in the seeking fed itself upon the problems of the world, a diet
which too much prolonged might lead to mental indigestion.
Morbid--was he? Introspective? A "grouch"? He was--he must be--all
of these things.

His small inquisitor had neglected none of his failings, had practiced
her glib tongue at his expense in the few hours in which she had taken
possession of Thimble Island and of him. What a child she was, how
spoiled and how utterly irresponsible! He identified her completely
now, Hermia Challoner, the sole heiress of all Peter Challoner's
hard-gotten millions, the heiress, too, it was evident, of his
attitude toward the world, the flesh and the devil; Peter Challoner,
by profession banker and captain of industry, a man whose name was
remembered the breadth of the land for his masterly manipulation of a
continental railroad which eventually came under his control; an
organizer of trusts, a patron saint of political lobbyists, a product
of the worst and of the best of modern business! This girl who had
fallen like a bright meteor across Markham's sober sky this morning
was Peter Challoner's daughter. He remembered now the stories he had
heard and read of her caprices, the races on the beach at Ormonde, her
fearlessness in the hunting field and the woman's polo team she had
organized at Cedarcroft which she had led against a team of men on a
Southern field. It had all been in the newspapers and he had read of
her with a growing distaste for the type of woman which American
society made possible. Peter Challoner's daughter, the spoiled
darling of money idolaters, scrubbing the floor of his kitchen!

As he sat looking out over the bay thinking of his visitor, a picture
rose and wreathed itself amid the smoke of his tobacco--the vision of