“I am going back with you, but I can’t stay there long unless it is absolutely necessary. A man of business,” he added, “makes a serious blunder when he neglects his affairs. In these hustling times, a fellow has to keep on the jump to gather in the shekels.”
“Oh, but there’s something better than mere money. Whoever gives himself wholly to the accumulation of wealth loses half his life.”
The change in her was marvelous, for once her only thought had seemed to be of wealth and power and social prestige. A country girl, risen from the humblest station in life, she had slavishly worshiped false gods. After all, was it not a blessing of kind Providence that the page of the past had been turned down and sealed for her? There was no recollection of the years she had spent in a private sanitarium, separated from husband and children—and that was well.
They sat there talking for some time. Other guests of the hotel came forth in summer garments and scattered themselves in chairs along the veranda to get the cool breath which now came creeping down from the snow-capped Rockies. Parties of sight seers were returning from Manitou, the Garden, the Cañon, Monument Park, and other near-by places of interest. Nearly all the guests of that big hotel were tourists from the East.
Presently a large touring car containing four young men rolled up to the steps and stopped. Brad Buckhart was at the wheel. His companions were Tucker, Bigelow, and Gregory McGregor.
At sight of them Dick rose and excused himself, bidding Mrs. Arlington adieu.
Chester proposed to take his mother to her room, but she declined, saying that she preferred to sit there a while longer.
“Go with your friend, my boy,” she urged. “I am all right. Don’t worry about me. Such a friend as that young man is worth cleaving to.”
“You’ve sized him up right at last, mother.”
“At last?” she breathed. “Why, I’ve never had the opportunity before. I could only judge of him from what you told me about him.”