“Why couldn’t he go somewhere else?” soliloquized Mr. Chester. “I am sure nobody wanted him here.” But the idea would intrude itself that perhaps Miss Frost wanted him. He would not entertain it. “She is like all the girls,” he reflected. “She is trying to bring me to the point. So she is playing off the beggarly artist against me. I wish I could retaliate. If I could find some other to take I might make her jealous.”
This struck Mr. Chester as a happy thought. But whom could he select? There was Clarissa Bassett; but no girl in her sober senses would think of being jealous of her. Still undecided, Mr. Chester reached the hotel, when, to his satisfaction, he found the Raymonds, of Brooklyn, had arrived to spend a couple of weeks. there for recreation.
The Raymonds included Mrs. Raymond and her two daughters. The elder was a girl of twenty four, not pretty, but with plenty of pretension. The younger, ten years younger, was still a school girl. The family was supposed to occupy a very exalted social position. All that was known on the subject in Granville came from themselves, and surely they ought to know. They were constantly making references to their aristocratic acquaintances and connections, and evidently felt that in visiting Granville they were conferring a marked favor on that obscure place.
Randolph Chester had not a particle of admiration for Clementina Raymond, but he hailed her arrival with great satisfaction. She was quite a different person from Clarissa Bassett. He would invite her to the picnic and pay her marked attention. Thus, he did not doubt, he could arouse the jealousy of Mabel, and punish her for accepting the escort of Allan Thorpe.
“I am delighted to see you, Miss Raymond,” he said.
Clementina received him very graciously. She understood that he was an eligible parti, and she had not found suitors plentiful. The Raymonds encouraged the idea that they were very rich, but it was a fiction. They were, in truth, considerably straitened, and this probably accounted for their selecting, as a summer home, the modest hotel at Granville, where for seven dollars a week they could live better than they allowed themselves to do at home, and keep up their social status by being “out of town.” Clementina not only desired to marry, but to marry a man of means, and it was understood that Mr. Randolph Chester was rich. He must be nearly fifty, to be sure, while she was only twenty four; but this would not prove an insuperable objection to the match.
“How long have you been here, Mr. Chester?” asked Miss Raymond languidly.
“Two weeks or more, Miss Raymond. I began to fear you would overlook Granville this summer.”
“We had half a mind to go to Newport,” said Clementina. “So many of our set there, you know. But mamma likes quiet, and preferred to come here. The rest of the year, I am so gay — I am sure you know what a tyrant society is — that with balls, parties, and receptions, I was really quite run down, and our physician strongly advised some quiet place like this. I was afraid of being bored, but since you are here, Mr. Chester, I feel quite encouraged.”
Mr. Chester cared nothing for Miss Raymond, but he did like flattery, and he was pleased with this compliment.
“I am quite at your service, Miss Raymond,” he responded cheerfully. “You won’t find in Granville the gayety of Brooklyn or New York, but we have our amusements. For instance, day after tomorrow there is to be a union picnic at Thurber’s Pond.”
“How charming! I shall certainly go; that is, if ladies can go unattended.”
“That will be quite en regle, but if you will accept my escort, Miss Raymond — — ”
“I shall be delighted, Mr. Chester, I am sure. May mamma go too?”
“Certainly,” said Mr. Chester, but he did not look delighted.
“My dear,” said the thoughtful mother, “I hardly feel equal to remaining there all the afternoon. You go with Mr. Chester, since he is so kind as to invite you. I may appear there in the course of the afternoon.”