Mrs. Percival felt bitterly her friend's loftiness of position. It was
of course impossible for a woman to feel superior to what she owns and
Mrs. Appleton owned more and always would own more than Lena Percival.
"Do you know, my love," Mrs. Appleton pursued, "I think your husband is
making a great mistake in going in for petty politics. With his pull,
and his fair amount of capital to start with, he ought to be able to
make a fortune. He's just throwing his life away."
"Don't you suppose I know it?" Lena cried tearfully. "I've told him so a
hundred times. He's just crazy over these nasty little things. He's
willing to sacrifice anything to get the place of ward alderman away
from some miserable Swede. Think of me tied in town all summer!"
"I wouldn't stand it," Mrs. Appleton answered absently, her eyes on
Marie, stuffing tissue paper in a sleeve. "A woman has such influence on
her husband. Take matters in your own hands, my dear."
Lena, rebellious at heart, found her only diversion in occasional
week-ends at other people's country houses, or in long flights by
evening in Dick's motor. Her husband was self-absorbed and often silent,
another person, as she frequently and querulously rubbed into him, from
the ardent creature of a few months before.
Sometimes he made attempts to open to her his subjects of thought, but
Lena never attempted to understand things that did not interest her, and
now that she was safely married, it was too much trouble to make much
pretense at it; so she was often alone, and frequently bored.
Even Mr. Early was away most of the time, and the great blank eyes of
closed windows blinked down at her from his closed house beyond the
dividing hedge that flanked the garden. His place stood on a corner, and
on the two sides that fronted the streets, Sebastian had hidden the
wonders of his terraces and trimmed trees by high walls, but toward the
Percivals he had been less exclusive. Most of the houses in St. Etienne,
like their own, had no property dividing line, but lawn melted into lawn
with a park-like openness that hinted at communistic kindliness. This
had its disadvantages in lack of privacy, and hence it was that in spite
of quite an extensive demesne, Lena found in her own garden no spot
absolutely hidden from curious eyes of passers, except in one thicket of
trees and shrubbery over near the Early boundary. Here there was
seclusion, and here, therefore, young Mrs. Percival had her hammock and
her group of chairs and tables; and here she spent long indolent
afternoons in sleepy reading and sleepier dreaming, which was only less
agreeable than the social triumphs of which she dreamed. And yet she
often found herself weary of nothing, and wished she had some one
exactly to her taste to keep her company and talk to her about little
things in that "fool's paradise of laziness" where, it is said, Satan is
entertainer in chief. Once in a while, on his brief home-stays, Mr.
Early illuminated her retreat with his presence.