“Don’t you think it is a little brutal to invite a man to leave Heaven and go back to earth?”
“Perhaps we need a dose of the world. Medicine is good for one.”
“Not unless he is ill; and I was never well till now.”
“Come, Ellery, we really must go,” she said with severity.
“Well, there’s lunch,” he meditated. “I confess that I can view the prospect of luncheon with something like equanimity. There are certain advantages about the world, Madeline.”
It was long after the driving party had returned when Miss Elton and Mr. Norris strolled up the path from the boat-house, quite indifferent to the fact of their lateness. Dick on the piazza watched their coming and needed no handwriting on the wall. The girl glowed and Ellery reflected her light.
“It would be a perfect woman who should unite her spirit with Lena’s soul-delighting body,” Percival said to himself. “And Ellery chooses the spirit, and I, God help me, love and choose the body. But I can not bear to meet them.”
He was turning to slip away when he met his wife face to face, and stopped half in curiosity to see what she would notice and hear what she would say. Lena, too, gazed at the oblivious advancing pair.
“Well, of all things!” exclaimed Mrs. Percival. “I should think she’d feel pretty cheap.”
“Why?” asked Dick, startled.