"A career? I know the verb, but not the noun," she retorted saucily.

"I'm afraid mine is nothing but the trivial task, flavored with all the

flavors I like best."

Sometimes, when they went home together at night, Percival had stories

to unfold to Norris alone--stories he could not tell Madeline, of things

found in the mire, upon which the healthy happy world turns its back

when every night it goes "up town" to pleasant hearthstones and to

normal life. These were tales of foul sounds and foul air, where men and

women gathered and drank and gambled and laughed with laughter that was

like the grinning of skulls, hollow and despairing. They were stories of

girls with sodden eyes and men with wooden faces--of innumerable schemes

to suck money by any means but those of honor. And these were the phases

of his study that Dick looked upon with a kind of anguished fascination,

as more and more he saw how the hands stretched out of that mire

smirched the city which he hoped to serve.

Sometimes, and this was when they were with Madeline again, Ellery would

have his experience to tell, redolent of printer's ink, and full of the

interest of that profession which is never two days the same--stories of

how business toils and spins and is not arrayed like Solomon. Norris,

too, was beginning to run up against human nature both in gross and in

detail, and to know the world, from the fight last night in Fish Alley

up to the doings of statesmen and kings. Madeline had little to tell,

for she was living quietly at home, taking the housekeeping off her

mother's hands and driving her father to the morning train. She had few

episodes more exciting than an afternoon call or a moonlight sail. But

the young men brought her their lives, and when she had made her gay

little bombardment of comment, they felt as though some new light had

fallen upon familiar facts. The very simplicity of her thought put

things in the right relation and gave the effect of a view from a higher

plane.

There were many times when they did not discuss, but gave themselves to

the joy of young things. They sailed, and Madeline held the tiller;

and, when evening came on, they curled down with cushions in the bottom

of the boat and sang and chattered the twilight out. They played golf

and tennis, and the blood leaped in their veins, for whatever they did,

they did it with heart and soul. As for their relations with one

another, these were taken for granted, and what they meant, not one of

the three stopped to question. It was enough that they were sweet and

satisfying in silence.

Late in the season there came a Sunday, memorable to Ellery, when Dick

had gone away for some purpose, and, after a little self-questioning,

Norris ventured alone for his afternoon with Madeline. She welcomed him

with such serene unconsciousness that he wondered why he had hesitated.




readonlinefreebook.com Copyright 2016 - 2024