“Why grieve for the prosperous? Reserve your tears for the suffering.”
“Why, you know, in town, they live with Mr. Windsor, who is Mrs. Lenox’s father, and he’s a multimillionaire; and it’s a great establishment; and the world is necessarily very much with them. So when Mr. Lenox proposed that they should build a country house of their own and spend their summers here, I think he wanted to get out to some primitive simplicity, where the children could go barefoot if they wanted to. But as soon as it was suggested, Mr. Windsor presented his daughter with a big tract, and insisted on building this great palace, and they have to keep so many servants that Mr. Lenox says it is a regular Swedish boarding-house. And there are so many guest-rooms that it would be a shame not to have them occupied; and extra people run out in their motors every day; and the children have to be kept immaculate all the time. So they’ve brought the world out with them. Mr. Lenox has to dress for dinner, instead of putting on old slippers and going out to weed the strawberry-bed, which is what he would like to do when he gets out on the evening train.”
“Poor things, in bondage to their house!” said Norris, and they all looked solemnly at the multitude of lights shining through the trees.
“There are ever so many disadvantages about being among the few very rich people in a western town, where most of your friends aren’t opulent,” Madeline went on. “When Mrs. Lenox makes a call, she has to wait while the woman changes her dress. And nobody says to her, ‘Oh, do stay to lunch,’ when they’ve nothing but oysters or beefsteak, but they wait till they get in an extra chef and then send her a formal invitation. I believe ours is one of the half-dozen houses where people don’t pretend to be something quite different from what they are when Mrs. Lenox appears. And yet she’s the most simple-minded and genuine person, and would rather have beefsteak and friendship than paté de fois gras and good gowns any day.”
“Poor things!” said Dick again.
“I think they are out on the terrace now. Would you like to go over and see them?” Madeline asked.
“No, thank you,” said Dick politely. “We won’t make their life any more complicated. Besides, I prefer the society of you and the stars to that of the miserable too-rich. And they are not alone.”
“Of course not. They never are. But Mrs. Lenox said yesterday that late this fall, when every one else has gone into winter quarters, she is going to ask you and me and perhaps one or two others to visit her; and we’ll have a serene and lovely time.”
“Do you think that there is any hope that they will have lost part of their money by that time?” asked Dick.
“Father says Mr. Windsor has forgotten how to lose money, and of course Mr. Windsor and Mr. Lenox are all one.”