"Moreover, since she has married, she has contracted a habit of taking
the opposite point of view," said her husband.
"Oh, that's one of the jokes that has successfully withstood the
ravages of time," said Mrs. Lenox scornfully.
"Very well, then, I'll say that you are getting on toward middle life
and have had your enthusiasms corrupted by a worldly-wise father and
husband. But I dare say that Miss Quincy, being young, is quite as
explosive as you are, Madeline. So we shall be two against two."
He looked with a challenge toward the girl, and perhaps Lena might have
managed the expected saucy answer if she had not suddenly remembered
that her shoes were shabby and she had meant to keep them hidden under
her skirts. This memory destroyed her new-found equilibrium, so she
blurted out a weak, "I really don't know anything about it," and then
blushed hotly at her own awkwardness.
"It's a stupid subject, anyway," said Mr. Lenox. "I fled from town to
avoid it. Let's not talk about negroes."
"Tell us what has happened in the great world," said Mrs. Lenox, leaning
forward with her elbows on her knees and chin in hands.
"Another Jap victory," he said. "And I'll take a second one of those
little cakes please, if Miss Quincy will leave one for me. It cuts me
to the heart to see how the young girls of our generation stuff on
little cakes. If they'd only take example by these same Japanese, who
develop strategy and patriotism on rice, cherry blossoms and gymnastics,
there'd be some hopes for us as a people."
He glanced again at Lena in a very amiable manner, as though he expected
her to be saucy in return, but she blushed with mystification and
mortification. She had felt doubtful as to whether she ought to take
another of the little cakes, but they were very good, and she was young
enough to love goodies, without many chances at anything so delectable
as these particular bits. And now to be detected and made fun of! She
began to question if she should be able to get along with these men,
after all.
"Thank you," he went on after a pause. "And now that I'm comforted with
cake, another cup of tea, Vera; and then, if you would complete my
happiness, just give me a posy out of that bouquet for my buttonhole."
His wife rose, pulled a flower from a vase and pinned it to his coat.
"Here's mignonette! That's for dividends," she said, and she put her
fingers in his hair and gave his head a little shake.
"Don't infringe on my head,--it's patented," he said. "Now go and sit
down, and I will tell you something really exciting as well as
instructive. I know about it because I have the privilege of helping the
good work with a few dollars. Professor Gregory has dug up two or three
hundred old manuscripts somewhere near Thebes, and he cables that they
belong to the first century after Christ, that he expects them to
illuminate most of the dark recesses of the time, and that I am
privileged to share the glory by making an ample contribution. Doesn't
that stir your young blood? I never hear of these things without a
passionate desire to go to some respectably aged land and dig and dig
and dig. It's a choice between doing so and making things in this very
new land for some other fellow to dig up six thousand years from now.
Which would you choose, Miss Quincy?"