“Certainly not. For a man with that splendid talent to bury it behind a counter, mitigated by a common church organ, is as remarkable as absurd; though he seems to thrive on it. It is a treat to see such innocent rapture, all genuine too!”
“You worn-out old man!” laughed Anna. “Aunt Cherry has always said that self-abnegation is the secret of Uncle Lance’s charm.”
“All very well in that generation—ces bons jours quand nous etions si miserables,” said Gerald, in his low, maundering voice. “Prosperity means the lack of object.”
“Does it?”
“In these days when everything is used up.”
“Not to those two—”
“Happy folk, never to lose the sense of achievement!”
“Poor old man! You talk as if you were twenty years older than Uncle Lance.”
“I sometimes think I am, and that I left my youth at Fiddler’s Ranch.”
Wherewith he strolled to the piano, and began to improvise something so yearning and melancholy that Anna was not sorry when her uncle came back and mentioned the tune the old cow died of.