Mrs. Percival smiled in return. “Well, I have had my explosion. It’s extraordinary what a relief it is, once in a while. I’m not often so guilty, am I, Madeline? After all, I’ve told you my fears rather than my convictions. The situation does not seem so bad, now that I have said even more than I think. Hereafter I shall find it easy to hold my tongue.”
“And you will try to like her?” Madeline asked anxiously.
“Of course, my dear. I shall try harder than any one else. I am going in state to pay her a motherly call this very afternoon, feeling all the time like a plated volcano.” Mrs. Percival leaned back with a small moue, then sat up again. “There’s my boy’s latch-key in the lock now,” she said.
Dick halted at the door when he saw the two and knew that they must have been talking of him. He had something of an air of defiance thickly overlaid with innocence; but Madeline went to meet him with hands outstretched.
“Dick,” she exclaimed, “I congratulate you with all my heart. She’s the prettiest creature in the world.”
Dick, manlike, regarded this as the highest possible tribute to his beloved and glowed in return. His defiance dropped like a shell and he shook Madeline’s hands with enthusiasm.
“You’re a trump,” he said. “I shall not forget how good you have been to her; and I hope you two will always be friends.”
“I should think so! I should like to see your trying to prevent us, Dick,” said Madeline saucily. “And your mother is going to love her, too, when—”
“When we are married,” Dick answered with silly masculine self-consciousness.
“And that is to be soon!”