Madeline Elton, therefore, wished herself back again with the fallen
maple leaves and the pines that held their own; and Mrs. Lenox was
fitting temptation to desire as the two hobnobbed over cups of tea in
easy friendliness. When Dick Percival appeared, Mrs. Lenox saw the way
to make her bait irresistible.
"Dick," she cried, "just the man! Don't you pine for sunshine in your
nostrils instead of city smoke? Doesn't the thought of winter coming,
cold and long, make you appreciate these last heavenly gleams? Do you
remember what a delicious week you and Mr. Norris and Madeline spent
with me a year ago?"
"Yes, to everything," said Dick. "All of which means--what? No cream,
please, Madeline."
"All of which means," answered the lady, "that Mr. Lenox and I are wise
in our generation and do not fly to the city when the first birds go
south; that I want Madeline to come and pay me a visit; that, as a kind
of sugar-plum, a chromo, if you please, to induce her to buy my wares, I
propose that you and Mr. Norris should join us on the Sunday of next
week. What do you say?"
"May the Lord prosper you, and I'll do my part as an attraction," Dick
replied heartily. "But I choose to be a sugar-plum rather than a chromo,
especially if Madeline is going to eat me."
"I didn't need any additional inducement, Mrs. Lenox," said Madeline.
"Yourselves and all out-doors are surely sufficient. It will be good to
get away from the grime. Now what bee have you in your bonnet, Dick?"
For a new look had come into his face as she spoke.
Percival had been glancing around the cheerful comfortable room whose
very books and pictures suggested peace of mind. It seemed to him that
he looked with Lena's longing eyes rather than with his own, familiar
with these surroundings. He was thinking how little his small courtesies
counted, and how much these women could do if they chose. Why shouldn't
he be bold? Madeline and Mrs. Lenox were simple-hearted enough to take
his plea at its true value, and not misunderstand his motives. They
would be interested in Lena in exactly the same way he was. He smiled at
Madeline's serenely inquiring face.
"Well, Dick?" she asked again.
"I was wondering whether I dared to suggest a little act of human
kindliness to you two. You women are so much more ready to do such
things than men are, but we are more apt to run up against the cases
where it is needed. There's a pathetic little girl doing some hack work
for the Star. Norris knows her. She's just one of those delicate
creatures that ought to live in the sheltered corner of a garden, and
she's out on a bleak prairie. She's about as much like the people she
has to associate with as an old-fashioned single rose is like a cabbage.
Even her mother, who is the only relative she has, is nothing but a
fretful porcupine of a woman. I've been to see them a few times and the
situation seems to me almost intolerable. If ever a girl needed a friend
or two, it's she--not for charity, you understand, but just for real
contact with people of her own kind. Now a man's not much use in such
circumstances, is he? But naturally I think you are about the best kind
of a friend in the world, so I came up this afternoon partly to see if
you wouldn't give her a hand."