Easter came late in April, when, to match man's mood, it should come;
for the world was alive with new vitality. The south winds were infusing
their wonder-working heats, and the bluebirds flashing their streaks of
color through branches that felt the stir of sap, amid buds that
strained to burst. There was the smell of growth where bits of "secret
greenness" hid behind the dead leaves of last fall.
On Saturday evening Mrs. Lenox welcomed the same circle that had met at
her home the November before, and Lena's little heart glowed with the
soul-satisfying sense of the difference to her. Then she had been a
social waif, received on sufferance. Now she was one of them. She could
even afford to have her own opinions. The very memory of past
discomforts doubled the present blessedness, and Mr. Lenox looked only
half the size that he had six months before. It was a long stride to
have taken in half a year, and with reason she congratulated herself on
her cleverness. In Mr. Lenox's gravity of manner as he took her in to
dinner, she perceived only respect for Mrs. Percival, not knowing that
he had in mind the small episode of the Chatterer, which his wife and
Miss Elton had agreed to ignore.
"What very sensible people we are!" exclaimed Mrs. Lenox as she surveyed
her small table party. "We shall spend to-morrow in hunting for anemones
instead of looking at our neighbors' spring fineries; we shall catch the
first robin at his love song, instead of listening to the cut and dried,
much-practised church music; and we shall find rest to our souls. Dick,
I am sure you need it. You look worn out. I'm afraid politics is proving
a hard mistress."
"I wonder if it is possible to do too much," said Dick, rousing himself,
with manifest languor. "It's only the way he does it that plays a man
out. Here's Ellery, now, who works like a galley slave and looks as
fresh as the proverbial daisy."
"Well, come, you are criticizing yourself even more severely," Mr. Lenox
said. "You'll have to learn the secret, Dick, of letting your arms and
legs and brain work for you, while your inner man remains at peace.
That's the only way an American man can live in these hustling days; and
if you don't master it, the young men will come in and carry you out by
the time that you are fifty."
"And there are worse things than that," rejoined Dick. "I suppose it is
the universal experience that when one gets out of the freedom of
extreme youth and settles down to the jog-trot, harnessed life, the way
looks rather long and monotonous. A fellow can't help feeling tired to
think how tired he'll be before he gets to the end. To-night I feel as
old and dry as a mummy. If you touch me, I'll crumble."