noon
The family had the money to spend , and at Yale in winter , at Newport and Beverly and Bar Harbor in summer , he had learned how to spend it , had watched admiringly how others spent their wealth . He had begun to educate his family in spending , -- in using to brilliant advantage the fruits of thirty years ' hard work and frugality . With his cousin Caspar Porter he maintained a small polo stable at Lake Hurst , the new country club . On fair days he left the lumber yards at noon , while Alexander Hitchcock was still shut in behind the dusty glass doors of his office . His name was much oftener in the paragraphs of the city press than his parents ' : he was leading the family to new ideals . Ideals , Sommers judged , that were not agreeable to old Colonel Hitchcock , slightly menacing even in the eyes of the daughter , whose horizon was wider . Sommers had noticed the little signs of this heated family atmosphere .