CHAPTER XVII.
"A CERTAIN PARTY" Kind are her answers, But her performance keeps no day; Breaks time, as dancers From their own music when they stray.
Lost is our freedom When we submit to women so: Why do we need 'em When, in their best, they work our woe?
-- THOMAS CAMPION.
The motor ride to The Plains was a cold and rough one.

I remember that we had to ford a stream or two, and that once, where the mud had been churned up and made deep by the wheels of many vehicles, we almost stuck.

Excepting at the fords, the road was dusty, and the dust was kept in circulation by the feet of countless saddle horses, on which men from the country to the south of Upperville were riding home from the races.
All the way to The Plains our lights kept picking up these riders, sometimes alone, sometimes in groups, all of them going our way, we taking their dust until we overhauled them, then giving them ours.
Dust was over me like a close-fitting gray veil when I reached the railroad station only to find that the train was late.

I had a magazine in my bag, but the light in the waiting-room was poor, so I took a place near the stove and gave myself up to anticipations of a bath, a comfortable room, clean clothing, and a good supper with my companion--and another companion much more beautiful.
I tried to picture her as she would look.

She would be in evening dress, of course.