"Wouldn't you prefer to change seats with me? Perhaps you would be less annoyed there by conversation as well as sunlight."
"You heard something of it, then," the girl exclaimed; "but I think they have said all the ignorant, stupid things they can think of."
"I saw that the remarks were troubling you," said Page, seating himself opposite in her section. "The Garden City has one champion, I'm sure."
"Dear, generous Chicago!" ejaculated the girl, and her youthful wrath was very entertaining to her neighbor. "It is the best thing that ever happened to the country that we are to have the Fair. Perhaps," with interest, "you are a Chicagoan?"
Page was obliged to deny this with a novel reluctance which amused him.
The girl gave the slightest toss of her head. "I suppose the Eastern people think we enjoy the prospect of being jostled, and crowded, and having our streets torn up and our city extended, and all our comfort taken away for two years while we live in a perfect Pandemonium. No. We do not enjoy it, but we do it as our duty because we know that we can and shall do it well. It is not best to trust such an enterprise to an old, slow town."
Page regarded the speaker with curiosity and interest. She spoke softly but emphatically in a contralto voice, and did not look at him, but beyond him. It occurred to her companion that with her superb vitality and unconscious audacity she might be a truer type of the triumphant young city than that shown in the cleverly insulting picture which had so tickled his imagination.
"I see you take a strong interest in the matter," he remarked.
"Yes. My sister's husband has been busy about it from the first; so I have heard much concerning the subject; but then all Chicagoans are interested. It is their way."
The evident pride with which the girl referred to this "way" caused Page to declare meekly, as a means of raising himself in her estimation, that he had relatives in Chicago.