On the Lightship

Though this happened at the Butler Penfields' garden party, the results concern Miss Mabel Dunbar more than any one else, except, perhaps, one other. Mabel had been invited, as she was invited everywhere, partly because she was a very pretty girl, and helped to make things go, and partly through public policy.

"So long as the dear child remains unmarried," Mrs. Fessenden had said, "we must continue to buy our tea from her."

For Mabel owed her amber draperies to the tea she sold and everybody bought because her grandmother had lived on Washington Square. In society, to speak of tea was to speak of Mabel Dunbar; to look in Mabel's deep brown eyes was to think of tea, and, incidentally, of cream and sugar.

"I used to consider her clever," Mrs. Fessenden remarked, "until she became so popular with clever men.... It is really most discouraging.... See, there is Lena Livingston, who has read Dante, pretending to talk to her own brother-in-law, while Mabel, who is not even married, walks off with Archer Ferris and Horace Hopworthy, one on each side."

"I do wonder what she talks to them about," speculated Mrs. Penfield, and Mrs. Fessenden replied:

"My dear, you may depend, they do not let her talk."

Mrs. Penfield reflected, while three backs, two broad and one slender and sinuous as a tea-plant, receded toward the shrubbery.

"I wonder which one Mabel will come back with?" she said.

"If Jack were here, he would give odds on Mr. Hopworthy," replied Jack's wife.

"Of course, Mr. Hopworthy is the coming man," observed Mrs. Penfield. "But Mr. Ferris has 'arrived.'"

"Yes," assented Mrs. Fessenden, "as Jack says, he has arrived and taken all the rooms.... But, then, I have great faith in Mr. Hopworthy. You know Jack's aunt discovered him."

"Yes," said Mrs. Penfield, "I remember, but, Clara, it was you that introduced him."

"Oh, that was nothing," murmured Clara. "We were very glad----"

"My two best men!" sighed Mrs. Penfield, her eyes upon the shrubbery, where nothing now was to be seen.

"Yes," acquiesced her friend, "but think how badly that last Ceylon turned out."

Meanwhile, the three had found a cool retreat, an arbour sheltered from the sun and open to the air, wherein a rustic garden seat, a table and a chair extended cordial invitations.

"Ah, this is just the place!" cried Archer Ferris. "By shoving this seat along a trifle, and putting this chair here, we can be very comfortable."

It was noticeable that Mr. Ferris retained possession of the chair. As for the vacant place beside her on the bench, Mabel's parasol lay upon it. Mr. Ferris beamed as only the arrived can beam.

"With your permission, I will take the table," said Mr. Hopworthy, looking to Miss Dunbar, who smiled. Mr. Ferris became overcast.

"I fear our conversation may not interest you," he told the other man. "You know, you do not write short stories."

And this was not the first time in the last half hour that Mr. Ferris had offered Mr. Hopworthy an opportunity to withdraw. The latter smiled, a broad, expansive smile.

"Oh, but I read them," he persisted, perching on the table. "That is," he added, "when there is plot enough to keep one awake."

Here Mr. Ferris smiled, or, rather, pouted, for his mouth, contrasted with that of Mr. Hopworthy, seemed child-like, not to say cherubic.

"Plots," he observed, "are quite Victorian. We are, at least, decadent, are we not, Miss Mabel?"

Mabel smoothed her amber skirt, and tried to look intelligent.

"Oh, yes, indeed," she said.

"Now, there was a story in last week's Bee called 'Ralph Ratcliffe's Reincarnation,'" continued the gentleman on the table. "Did you read it, Miss Dunbar?"

"I laid it aside to read," she answered, with evasion.

"Pray don't. It's in my weakest vein," remonstrated Mr. Ferris. "One writes down for the Bee, you know."

"Pardon me," said Mr. Hopworthy, "I did not recognize the author's name as one of yours."

"No one with fewer than twelve names should call himself in literature," the other said, a little vauntingly.

Mr. Hopworthy embraced his knee.

"The plot of that story----" he had begun to say, when Mr. Ferris interrupted.

"There are but seven plots," he explained, "and thirty situations. To one that knows his trade, the outcome of a story should be from the very beginning as obvious as a properly opened game of chess."

"How interesting it must be to write," put in Miss Dunbar appreciatively. Perhaps, in her simple way, she speculated as to where the present situation came among the thirty, and whether the sunbeam she was conscious of upon her hair had any literary value.

"Do you ever see the Stylus?" inquired Mr. Hopworthy, from whose position the sunbeam could be observed to best advantage.

"Sir," said Mr. Ferris, through his Boucher lips, "I may say I am the Stylus."

"Really!" cried the lady, though she could not have been greatly surprised.

In truth, her exclamation veiled the tendency to yawn often induced in the young by objective conversation. If clever people only knew a little more, they would not so often talk of stupid things.

"Ah, then it is to you we owe that spirited little fabliau called 'The Story of Ignatius, the Almoner'?" remarked Mr. Hopworthy, almost indifferently.