"Dick was born to all good things," he went on. "I sometimes wonder how
that feels." Then, seeing that she glanced at him inquiringly: "Dick
always seems to me one who needs only to stand still, and Fortuna takes
pains to hunt him up and offer him her choicest wares. Life looks to him
more like a birthday party than like a battle-field. I say it not in
envy, but with the awe of one who has had to scrabble and who sees
endless scrabbling ahead. But I believe part of the charm that I feel
about Dick is his manifest predestination to good luck."
"One piece of his luck, if I am not mistaken, is in your coming here.
There is no friend like a college friend for every-day wear," she
answered kindly.
"Well, I owe my position here to him," Norris went on. "When he found
that I had an uncle back in Connecticut who owned a share in the St.
Etienne Star, he began to pull wires both at that end and this to get
me a place on the editorial staff. I'm afraid that nothing but wires
would have got it for me. So here I am making my first bow to society
under the shadow of his cloak."
"Of course you came here."
"What, really, is Mr. Early?"
"Apostle, expounder of the universe, business man, prophet."
Norris laughed.
"He's our display window. The way in which he manages to keep a little
lion always roaring on the bargain-table astonishes us all every day.
And when he runs short of foreign lions he roars a bit himself.
Privately, I think he's more entertaining than the imported article. St.
Etienne would be merely a western city without him.
"Now," she went on, "I'm going to introduce you to some other girls. To
me, as to Dick, Miss Elton may be the bright particular star, but she is
not the only light."
So Miss Elton and Percival were left alone in the crowd.
"Madeline," said the young man, "does this getting through college make
you feel as though you had suddenly had your cellars taken away and
your attics left foundationless in space? The question is 'what next?'
That's what I used to ask you in the good old days when we played
mumbly-peg together. What shall we play now?"
"I know what I shall play. There is home, with mother enraptured to have
me at her beck and call again; and, of course, there are musical and
social 'does'. They are going to be such fun that I do not know if I
shall have room to tuck in a little study. But I suppose you must have a
harder game. Yes, you must."