Read Ebook: Jewel Weed by Winter Alice Ames Fisher Harrison Illustrator

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Ebook has 2003 lines and 88410 words, and 41 pages

"So glad!" she murmured. "Mr. Percival must bring you to my lawn-party next week."

But even while Norris expressed his thanks, Dick's eyes wandered, until, with a cheerful start, he caught his companion's arm.

"There she is, Ellery," he said. "This way."

Norris knew in his heart that he was waiting for that summons, and he turned and followed as Percival began a slow progress through the crowd toward that uncompromising stiff-lined bench of the kind that Mr. Early affected, where sat the girl like a cameo, beside a woman somewhat older than herself.

The younger woman lifted her eyes and caught from afar the greeting of the advancing men. That there should be no sudden illumination, no swift blush in her nod of recognition, gave Dick a slight feeling of irritation. He had regarded a little polite display of delight as in some way his right. But if she was undemonstrative, she had the virtues of her failing, for there was a certain serenity even in the broad curve with which her hair clung to her temples, and in the over-crowded room her smile was as refreshing as a draft from a cool spring. Both of these women were marked by a repose of manner which distinguished them from the eager crowd that was pushing toward the latest new apostle. It was the elder who put out a welcoming hand.

"Ah, Dick," she said, "you are at home at last. How good it is to see you! When did you come?"

"Last night. Mother sent me over here to-day with the promise that I should see you--and Madeline." His eyes traveled to the girl beyond. "And this, Mrs. Lenox, Miss Elton, is my good friend, Norris. You already know that we were lovely together in college, and in life we hope not to be divided. You'll be good to him, won't you?"

In Mrs. Lenox's greeting there was that mixture of kindliness with shrewd instant analysis that becomes a habit with women of the world, and Norris stiffened with fresh realization that he was raw and unaccustomed to her suave atmosphere. He would have liked to be his best self before Percival's friends, and he felt like an oyster. Even the gentle eyes of Miss Elton seemed to measure him. Fortunately they thought chiefly of Dick, and when did Dick's facile tongue fail him?

"Of course this would be the first spot on which to reappear. No one but Mr. Early would dare to give a reception in July," Mrs. Lenox exclaimed.

"And the absurd thing," Dick retorted, "is that you all come--back into town, leaving birds and waters--at Mr. Early's bidding."

"Yes, my respect for my sex rises when I see them so eager to prostrate themselves before a simple seeker after truth with a turban and a ruby. A turban and a ruby do so illuminate the search for truth!"

"You are a scoffer," laughed Dick. "Why are you here?"

"Foolish one, I came to scoff. I must see all there is to be seen. If there is an apple to be bitten, I must bite. I have floated in with the flood and out with the ebb of almost every fad from crystal-gazing to bridge. I always hope that one of them is going to be worth while."

"But you can't call the Swami's philosophy 'a fad'," objected Norris.

"No, perhaps that wasn't fair. Ram Juna is really very celestial in a ponderous kind of way, isn't he? When he talked the simple old truths I liked him, but not in the esoteric explanations and profounder mysteries. I have chased Mystery for more years than I shall own, and, so far as I can see, whenever you open the door on her secret chamber, she shuts a door on the other side and is gone into a further holy of holies. I've come to disbelieve in those who tell me that they have caged her at last."

"That's what I say," exclaimed Dick. "A man knows too much when he tells you that Mystery is five feet three, weighs a hundred and twenty-six pounds and eats no meat."

"It's too much like a mixture of legerdemain and theology."

"I always liked juggling!" exclaimed Miss Elton. "And I like the ruby. See it now, gleaming over the ranks of war-paint and hats."

"I believe the ruby interests you both more than the search for truth," Dick laughed.

"And well it may!" Mrs. Lenox flashed back. "Once it belonged to a magnificent rajah ancestor, who hugged it to his soul, and held it too precious to be worn by his favorite wife. But now Swami Ram Juna has renounced the pomps and indulgences of courts and become, as I said, an humble seeker. He, too, loves the ruby--not from any vulgar love of display--but because to his soul it is a mystic symbol of Adhidaiva--the life-giving energy, refulgent as the sun behind dark clouds. Isn't that a pointer for those of us who want diamonds and things? I believe I'll ask Mr. Lenox for a symbol or two this very evening."

"You seem well-informed."

"I doubt if it is a difficult task for you to keep Mr. Lenox amused," said Norris, smiling at her.

"Moreover," added Percival, "I understand that when your frivolities cease to amuse, Mr. Lenox can divert himself by helping your father in the building of a new little railroad or something of that kind."

"True, but building new railroads, beguiling though it be, proves more wearing to the nerves than does my conversation, so I must still practise the art of rattling. But I needn't practise it on you," she went on, glancing at Miss Elton under her eyelids. "Now, Dick, I am going to give you my very uncomfortable seat on this bench and let you and Madeline talk over old times, and new times which are to be still better. Perhaps Mr. Norris will go about with me and meet some of the people--beard the western prairie-dog in his den, so to speak."

"Now that is really good of you, Mrs. Lenox. You know this is the first time Madeline and I have come together since we got through college and have been recognized as grown up. In fact, I'm not used to her in long dresses yet."

He glanced at the smiling girl as Mrs. Lenox nodded and turned.

"How lovely Miss Elton is!" exclaimed Norris as they moved away together. "Of course I've seen her picture in Dick's room, but it did not do her justice."

"Lovely, indeed!" Mrs. Lenox answered heartily. "You have chosen the one word to be applied to Madeline Elton, both to her spirit and to her face--not thrilling, perhaps, but satisfying, which is better. She and Dick were inseparables through their childhood. It is rather a taken-for-granted affair, you know."

"I guessed as much, though Dick never said anything."

There was something so confidential and kindly in her manner that Norris forgot his awkwardness and felt moved to confidence in return.

"Dick was born to all good things," he went on. "I sometimes wonder how that feels." Then, seeing that she glanced at him inquiringly: "Dick always seems to me one who needs only to stand still, and Fortuna takes pains to hunt him up and offer him her choicest wares. Life looks to him more like a birthday party than like a battle-field. I say it not in envy, but with the awe of one who has had to scrabble and who sees endless scrabbling ahead. But I believe part of the charm that I feel about Dick is his manifest predestination to good luck."

"One piece of his luck, if I am not mistaken, is in your coming here. There is no friend like a college friend for every-day wear," she answered kindly.

"Of course you came here."

"What, really, is Mr. Early?"

"Apostle, expounder of the universe, business man, prophet."

Norris laughed.

"He's our display window. The way in which he manages to keep a little lion always roaring on the bargain-table astonishes us all every day. And when he runs short of foreign lions he roars a bit himself. Privately, I think he's more entertaining than the imported article. St. Etienne would be merely a western city without him.

"Now," she went on, "I'm going to introduce you to some other girls. To me, as to Dick, Miss Elton may be the bright particular star, but she is not the only light."

So Miss Elton and Percival were left alone in the crowd.

"Madeline," said the young man, "does this getting through college make you feel as though you had suddenly had your cellars taken away and your attics left foundationless in space? The question is 'what next?' That's what I used to ask you in the good old days when we played mumbly-peg together. What shall we play now?"

"I know what I shall play. There is home, with mother enraptured to have me at her beck and call again; and, of course, there are musical and social 'does'. They are going to be such fun that I do not know if I shall have room to tuck in a little study. But I suppose you must have a harder game. Yes, you must."

"And are you so contented with the dead level? I fancied you were going to be ambitious."

She turned her head and looked out through the narrow mullioned window beside her as though to avoid his eyes, but she answered quietly:

"If I have any ambitions, they are not very imposing. Let's talk about yours; or rather let's not talk about yours here. There are too many people and too much Swami. We are out at the lake, at the old summer home. Run out and dine with us to-morrow. Father is almost as anxious to see you as I am. You know you are his chief consolation for the fact that I am not a boy."

"Thanks. May I bring Norris? Not that I'm afraid of the dark by myself, but that I really want you to know him."

"Bring him of course, Dick," she said without enthusiasm.

"And now do you suppose I can get you a cup of coffee or a sherbet?"

"Hush, I don't know whether anything so vivid is possible. I believe, out of deference to Ram Juna, the refreshments are light almost to Nirvana. You can't insult a man who lives on a few grains of rice by making him watch the herd gorge on salads and ices, can you?"

"And do you really believe that great mountain of flesh was built out of little grains of rice?"

"Mrs. Appleton--you remember her?"

"She has pounced on me already. She remembers that I waltz like a dream."

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