As the months drifted into summer, young Mrs. Percival often felt very
dull. She had not even the excitement of envy left her for, with the
engagement of Miss Elton and Mr. Norris, much of her old enmity for
Madeline faded. Ellery looked to her like a fate so inferior to her own
that she could afford to drop her jealousy; and since Mr. Early and Dick
were now wholly released from thrall, she considered Madeline a creature
too inoffensive to be reckoned an enemy. She could even share the
tolerant and amused pleasure with which the world surveys a love match.
This pair was so evidently and rapturously content that they diffused
their own atmosphere. Lena could not understand that variety of love,
but its presence was patent to her.
Most of the "real people" as Mrs. Appleton called them, in improvement
on their Maker's classification, were leaving town either for the lake
or for some more distant breathing place, but she was tied at home,
first because Mrs. Percival the elder, whom Dick refused to desert,
preferred the wide quiet of her rooms, and second because Dick himself
grew daily more absorbed in his political labors.
Lena went to say good-by for the summer to Mrs. Appleton and was bidden
to come up stairs to a disordered little room where that matron
superintended a flushed maid busy with packing.
"I am really quite played out with all this turmoil," Mrs. Appleton
sighed. "Truly, dear Mrs. Percival, I think you are to be congratulated
on staying at home. The game is not worth the candle."
"I think, if Madame is tired, I could finish alone." Marie lifted a face
that manifested hope from the bottom of a trunk, but Madame shook her
head. It was one of her principles to see to everything herself and so
gain the proud consciousness of utter exhaustion in doing her duty.
Lena glanced enviously about the heaped up gowns and lacy lingerie. It
made her own stock seem mean.
"Perhaps it will amuse you to look these over while I am busy," Mrs.
Appleton went on good-humoredly, pushing a leather-bound case across the
table toward Lena's arm. Mrs. Percival lifted out one little tray after
another with growing sullenness. The profusion of jewels gave her no
pleasure. She slammed the trays back in place.
"Did Mr. Appleton give you all of these?" she demanded.
"Yes. Isn't he generous? But he says that my type of beauty is one that
can stand lavish decoration."
"He's certainly more free than Dick," Lena said with bald envy,
reviewing her own small store that a few short months ago had seemed to
her like the wealth of Ormus and of Ind.
"My dear," Mrs. Appleton exclaimed with a self-conscious laugh, "you can
hardly expect Dick Percival to rival Humphrey."