The Thorhaven season had passed its height, and that August month, towards which all the efforts of the lodging-house keepers and tradespeople converged during the year, was nearly at an end, while on every fence and wall employed for bill sticking could be read in large letters: “A Great Gala Night will take place on Thursday, August the twenty-ninth. Splendid Illuminations. Continental Attractions. Dancing on the Green from eight to ten-thirty.”

The term Continental Attractions was the inspiration of Mr. Graham, who had recently visited the South of France on account of his wife’s health at least he gave that as his reason, though Mrs. Graham told all her friends confidentially that she would never have incurred so much trouble and expense if her husband had not shown symptoms of incipient bronchitis and she equally believed herself to be speaking the truth. Anyway, there it was; and from the visit to Cannes resulted this idea of imparting a joie de vivre to the Thorhaven Gala by means of paper streamers and air balloons. There had been some consideration of squeakers and false noses; but one or two members of the Promenade Sub-Committee raised the reasonable objection that the squeakers would interfere with the band, while the false noses Well, there was something indefinably loose about false noses which they could feel but could not describe in words. At any rate, they were not going to allow such things on their promenade.

There was a good deal of talk concerning the Gala in the town; so that those inhabitants who were familiar with illustrated magazines and the lighter drama and also possessed a sanguine temperament no doubt went about picturing to themselves a still night with coloured lanterns hanging motionless against a deep blue sky, while a crowd of exuberant visitors disported themselves in pale garments and unusual attitudes for the amusement of the Thorhaven people.

But the clerk of the weather was not going to have anything so incongruous as all that, and the 29th rose cold and grey one of those summer days which are a premonition of autumn. A strongish wind blew from the west; leaves came whirling down on the road leading to the promenade, and the sky was grey-black with clouds scudding across; while beneath it, a rising sea showed a line of white breakers in the gloom like the cruel teeth of a monster seeking something to devour.

Still the evening came with no sign of rain; the band stationed at the edge of the green played cheerful dances with a will, and it was no fault of theirs that the music sounded so lost and futile amid the roaring of the sea rather as if a penny whistle were to be played in a cathedral while the organ was booming out solemn music among the springing arches. Perhaps the visitors and the Thorhaven people felt something of this themselves, for they put no real zest into their attempts at carnival, but they danced rather grimly in the cold wind, with little tussocks in the grass catching their toes and the fairy lamps which edged the lawn blowing out one after the other.

At the windiest corner, near the hall, was planted the respectable middle-aged woman who sometimes assisted in cleaning the church though she was herself an ardent Primitive and in her arms she held a struggling mass of air balloons which seemed most anxious to escape over the North Sea to those parts of Europe where carnival is more at home. But no one seemed to be buying from her excepting a few children, whose needs were soon satisfied. Then a worn-looking young man came up and purchased two balloons for his children at home, but after that the woman stood there alone again, with the balloons buffeting about her head.

At another point farther down the promenade, a boy suffering from a slight cold in his head offered for sale a tray of those snake-like paper missiles which can be shot out suddenly with startling effect. But he seemed rather ashamed of his job and kept in the gloom as much as possible, now and then making a sale among the children, who ran in and out behind the more sheltered seats where their elders sat in winter coats.

Mr. Graham as the originator of these attractions felt exceedingly impatient, both with his fellow-townspeople and the visitors, as he sat watching. A chill air blew down the back of his neck and he was conscious of an incipient cold, which all added to his feeling of bitterness. “No earthly use trying!” he burst forth, rising abruptly from his seat. “English people don’t know how to enjoy themselves, and it’s no use trying to teach them.”

He scowled first at the scene before him and then at his wife, who sat with Mrs. Bradford and Miss Ethel on a long wooden seat.

“You couldn’t imagine the weather would be like this, dear,” said Mrs. Graham soothingly.

“The air will do us good,” added Miss Ethel, a little pink about the nose, but wishful to be polite.

“Well, there’s plenty of it,” he said bitterly, grabbing his hat, which threatened to blow away.

It was plain that he jested with an anxious heart, thinking of what might be said of his venture at the next Council meeting. Those very offensive fellows who always were against him would, of course, make capital out of this. . . . Suddenly he braced himself up and strode away across the lawn. They should frisk, if any influence of his could make ’em!

His wife looked after him sympathetically, then turned to Miss Ethel. “That’s right!” she said. “Arthur will soon put a little more spirit into them. You see he knows how it is done. I shall never forget the way he entered into the spirit of the thing that time when we were abroad. If you could have seen him going down the Plage with a sort of a rattle in his hand and his hat on one side But there’s something in the climate, of course.”

“I suppose there must be,” said Miss Ethel, with an involuntary glance at the couples jigging solemnly about the grass in front of her.

They sat silent for a time, feeling colder and colder, but sparing Mrs. Graham’s feeling by remaining where they were. “Isn’t that Caroline?” said Mrs. Bradford, after a long pause.

“I dare say. She told me the arrangements were somewhat different this evening, and she was to come off duty at half-past nine,” said Miss Ethel.

Then Mr. Graham came back and bumped himself down so heavily on the wooden seat that the ladies felt a slight jar.

“No life!” he exclaimed. “No gaiety! No joie de vivre!” He paused, blowing his nose. “Well, this is the last time. I’ll never attempt anything of the sort again.”

“You must not say that. I am sure the Thorhaven people are grateful,” murmured Miss Ethel.

“Old fool!” blurted out Mr. Graham with alarming ferocity and suddenness. “A woman like that ought to be kept indoors when other people are enjoying themselves, and only taken out in a churchyard on a chain. Fit for nothing else!”

“Arthur! What are you talking about?” said his wife, naturally startled.

“Well,” he said, then had to swallow and choke. “Well, I bought one of those paper snakes just to encourage the lad and set things going a bit. Then I let it run out as I passed a dull-looking group that seemed not to be enjoying themselves. And and

“Well, Arthur?”

“A wretched woman turned round and called me an impudent old scoundrel told me she didn’t want any grey-haired married men after her girls.”

“I don’t believe it! I can’t! She meant somebody else. Don’t you feel sure she must have meant her remark for some other passer-by, Mrs. Bradford?” said Mrs. Graham, much agitated by his annoyance.

Mrs. Bradford eyed Mr. Graham with stolid thoroughness. “I think she must. He doesn’t look at all like that. But my husband used to say that the sedate middle-aged-looking ones were often the worst, so perhaps she may have thought the same.”

“If she did, she was an idiot,” said Mrs. Graham; then abruptly changed the subject. “Oh, there’s Godfrey Wilson! I suppose he often comes through here on his way to his rooms.”

“Yes, that’s it. No fear of his wanting to dance with the girls on the promenade nowadays,” answered Mr. Graham, beginning to recover himself by degrees. “Well, Lizzie, I think we’ve had enough of this, don’t you? Shall we go in and have a bit of supper? Then I will see Mrs. Bradford and Miss Ethel home.”

But as they walked away, he could not refrain from casting a backward glance at the decent woman struggling with her unruly air-balloons, and a sense of disappointed joie de vivre came over him once more. “I wish to goodness the whole bag o’ tricks would blow away into the sea,” he said. “I’d willingly pay the piper. I’m sick to death of seeing the things bob up and down in the wind.”

“Are you?” said Miss Ethel in her sharp way. “Then why don’t you buy them all up and send them to the children at the Convalescent Home that Laura is so interested in?”

“Now that’s an idea,” said Mr. Graham at once. For the feeling that it was his duty to give to a charitable institution when he could, had been handed down to him it was a part of life, no less natural than having his hair cut or going to the dentist’s. Out in the new, changed world this instinctive generosity might already be taking flight scared away, as the fairies had been by steam traffic but in Thorhaven it still remained.

So he went back to the woman selling air-balloons with restored self-satisfaction, and stood there in the high wind, diving into his pockets for the amount required. The air balloons blew about purple, pink and white all looking almost equally colourless by the faint light as they bobbed about the woman’s head, impeding her view of the purchaser. A few moments later she was making her way home, thankful to be done with a job which seemed to her ridiculous.