"Say no more," returned Van Tassel, waving his hand grandiloquently. "We Chicagoans are nothing if not magnanimous."
"I thought I knew what I was going to see, that is the queer part of it," said Page, looking perplexed; "but it seems I didn't know anything at all about it. I feel there is an unlimited feast in store for me, Mrs. Van Tassel."
Clover smiled at his enthusiastic tone. "You are in the first-day frame of mind, I see."
"What is that?"
"Oh, eagerness and hopefulness."
"And what is the second?"
"Despair; yes, overwhelming, stony despair."
"What is the third? Suicidal tendency?"
"No indeed. Resignation. At first one expects and determines to see everything; soon finds that to be so impossible that he yields to his bewilderment, and at last accepts the inevitable and sets himself to see what he can, and be rapturously content therewith."
"Thank you, thank you! Forewarned, forearmed. Perhaps we may even skip the second stage."