Mrs. Lenox shut the magazine and her own teeth.
“It is inconceivable that such stuff should be printed, and that people should buy it,” she said. “But you see it is so vague that it might refer to any one at any place, and even if we knew who was meant, it is too insignificant a piece of small malice to receive anything but contempt. And now good-by, Mrs. Quincy. I hope these coming spring days are going to help you to better health.”
“Good-by. I always appreciate your visits,” whined Mrs. Quincy. “I’m sure, with all you have to do, I don’t wonder you don’t come oftener. I know there’s nothin’ to draw you.”
Mrs. Lenox went away with a deep breath and a longing for fresh air. She shook her head at the waiting coachman and said, “I am going to walk, Emil.”
She moved along in a cloud of conjectures, not that the small paragraph seemed to her very important, but she was a little sickened by the sudden glimpse of petty minds, who, being rich, stay by preference in the slums.
“Mrs. Quincy, like Mrs. Percival, makes me feel that life is not a big thing to be lived for some big reason, but an affair to be scrambled through day by day, grabbing everything you can, and hating those who have grabbed more. What a way to worry through seventy or eighty years!” she groaned to herself.
Almost at her own door she met Ram Juna, who turned with her to make one of his ponderous calls, while she sat and talked with him of emptiness and philosophy, with that vivacious patience that becomes a habit with women of the world; but when the door opened and her husband appeared, accompanied by Dick Percival and Ellery Norris she heaved a distinct sigh of relief.
“We know that the dinner hour is looming on the horizon, and we’re not going to stay,” said Dick. “But your husband has some civic reform monographs that I thought I would borrow while he was in the lending mood.”
“You needn’t apologize, Dick,” she laughed. “You are more than tolerated in this house.”
There came a sharp noise, and Madeline Elton, with pale face and eyes big, stood in the doorway. Every one knew that something had happened, and Mrs. Lenox, who saw the rolled magazine in the nervous hand, guessed its purport in a flash.