CHAPTER XXI.
THE WOMAN AT THE WINDOW.
The members of the clubhouse party were amusing themselves that afternoon in the various ways peculiar to their kind.
At one end of the wide veranda overlooking the river a group sat at a card table.

At the other end of the roomy lounging place, men and women, lying at careless ease in steamer-chairs and hammocks, were smoking and chatting about such things as are of interest only to that strange class who are educated to make idleness the chief aim and end of their existence.

On the broad steps leading down to the tree-shaded lawn, which sloped gently to the boat landing at the river's edge, still other members of the company were scattered in characteristic attitudes.
Across the river, in the shade of the cottonwoods that overhang the bank, a man and a woman in a boat were ostensibly fishing.

In a hammock strung between two trees, a little way from the veranda, lay a woman, reading.
Now and then a burst of shrill laughter broke the quiet of the surrounding forest.

A man on the steps called a loud suggestive jest to the pair in the boat, and the woman waved her handkerchief in answer.
The card-players argued and laughed over a point in their game.