Ethelyn did not like it at all, and liked it the less because she felt that to some extent her husband was to blame.

He ought to have written and engaged rooms beforehand--Aunt Van Buren always did, and Mrs.Col.Tophevie, and everybody who understood the ins and outs of fashionable life.

But Richard did not understand them.

He believed in taking what was offered to him without making a fuss, he said.

He had never been to Saratoga before, and he secretly hoped he should never come again, for he did not enjoy those close, hot rooms and worm-eaten furniture any better than Ethelyn did, but he accepted it with a better grace, saying, when he first entered it, that "he could put up with 'most anything, though to be sure it was hotter than an oven." His mode of expressing himself had never suited Ethelyn.