"Sit down over there," she commanded. "No, you shan't come near me,
Dick, until I've said my say. I'm really much displeased, and you need
not act as though you thought it was a trifling matter."
Dick sat humbly in the spot appointed.
"Dick, I don't want you to say any more horrid little things about
women. You've done it several times lately. The other day you said
something to Mr. Early about his 'glorious freedom'; and you made a
sneering remark to Mr. Preston about women's small dishonesties."
"Only jokes, I assure you."
"Everybody knows that women are a great deal better than men."
"They must be," said Dick. "Literature is full of statements to that
effect."
"And marriage is far more desirable than 'glorious freedom'."
"It is," answered Dick. "So long as there are things to disagree about,
marriage will not lose its savor."
"You say that in a perfectly mean way, as though you did not really
believe anything nice. But whether you believe it or not, I am going to
ask you not to talk so any more," Mrs. Percival went on with dignity,
"because it sounds exactly like a criticism of me, and I think you owe
it to me to treat me with respect. What must people think of me when you
fling in--what do you call them--innuendoes like that around?"
Mr. Percival looked at his wife in silence; then he picked her up,
chair and all, and whirled her around in front of a long pier glass.
"Do you see that?" he demanded.
Lena saw and dimpled.
"Now I propose," Dick went on, "to carry you down stairs, just as you
are! I shall then arouse the whole household by my shouts and gather
them around you; and when every man jack of them is there, I shall say
'Ladies and gentlemen, is it possible for a man whose wife looks like
this to utter any serious accusation against femininity?'"
"Dick, don't be silly," said Lena, pouting with pleasure, and she
glanced again at herself in the glass. "I am nice, am I not?"
"Nice!" ejaculated Dick, "Huyler and Maillard and Whitman and Lowney,
all rolled into one big candy man, never dreamed of anything so sweet.
Did you really think I was disrespectful? Why, little Lena!"
Easter morning dawned, a God-given splendor of blue and spring softness,
and the six stood, after breakfast, on the veranda and looked at the
day.
"Time and the world are before you. Choose how you will spend the
forenoon," said Mrs. Lenox.
"I should like to drive," Lena promptly replied. "Mr. Lenox was telling
me last night about his new pair of horses. I know he is pining to show
them off."