"You seem well-informed."
"Oh, Mr. Early posted me. It's humiliating to think that perhaps he
designed that as an easy way of getting the facts spread abroad and so
preparing a way for the truth-seeker. And he also told me that they have
very good copies of the Bagavad Gita at McClelland's for a quarter, so
you may keep up with the advance guard at small expense. I have to know
things in order to keep my husband posted with entertaining gossip. Men
always want to know every little thing and then lay the blame of gossip
at the door of women."
"I doubt if it is a difficult task for you to keep Mr. Lenox amused,"
said Norris, smiling at her.
"Moreover," added Percival, "I understand that when your frivolities
cease to amuse, Mr. Lenox can divert himself by helping your father in
the building of a new little railroad or something of that kind."
"True, but building new railroads, beguiling though it be, proves more
wearing to the nerves than does my conversation, so I must still
practise the art of rattling. But I needn't practise it on you," she
went on, glancing at Miss Elton under her eyelids. "Now, Dick, I am
going to give you my very uncomfortable seat on this bench and let you
and Madeline talk over old times, and new times which are to be still
better. Perhaps Mr. Norris will go about with me and meet some of the
people--beard the western prairie-dog in his den, so to speak."
"Now that is really good of you, Mrs. Lenox. You know this is the first
time Madeline and I have come together since we got through college and
have been recognized as grown up. In fact, I'm not used to her in long
dresses yet."
He glanced at the smiling girl as Mrs. Lenox nodded and turned.
"How lovely Miss Elton is!" exclaimed Norris as they moved away
together. "Of course I've seen her picture in Dick's room, but it did
not do her justice."
"Lovely, indeed!" Mrs. Lenox answered heartily. "You have chosen the one
word to be applied to Madeline Elton, both to her spirit and to her
face--not thrilling, perhaps, but satisfying, which is better. She and
Dick were inseparables through their childhood. It is rather a
taken-for-granted affair, you know."
"I guessed as much, though Dick never said anything."
There was something so confidential and kindly in her manner that Norris
forgot his awkwardness and felt moved to confidence in return.