"I don't want a girl to make me drunk," ejaculated Norris.
"Well, I do," rejoined Dick.
"And though Miss Elton's emotions do not lie on the surface, I'll
warrant they are there," Ellery went on as though letting off pent-up
steam. "They are like her voice--like all her motions--neither loud nor
faint, but exquisitely modulated. She seems to me like the embodiment of
innocence,--not the innocence of ignorance, but the untaintedness of a
mind that goes through the world selecting the best, as the bee takes
honey and leaves the rest. There's no subject, so far as I can see, on
which she is afraid to think; but I can not imagine that any subject
would leave a deposit of mire in her mind."
"Gee whizz!" scoffed Dick. "How fluent your year of journalism has made
you! What a great thing it is to be a serious-minded young man with
eye-glasses, engaged, while yet in youth, in molding public opinion
through the mighty agent of the press! And Madeline is another of the
same kind."
"I wish I were of her kind," said Ellery stiffly. "You may poke fun at
me as much as you like, Dick, but it's beneath you to jeer at her."
"You old duffer, aren't you two the best friends I have in the world? I
like the clear and frosty mountain peaks."
"How did you find out about Barry?" Ellery asked abruptly.
"I do not have to tell you any more than Madeline." Seeing the grim look
on Norris' face, Dick went on, "Let's go in and to bed. We seem to rub
each other the wrong way to-night. If we don't separate soon we shall be
having a French duel."