“Then,” said Madeline, watching him critically, as he made a brilliant putt into the cup from the very edge of the green, “I should say that the trouble is not with the novel, but with the hero. He has had plenty of chances, but he doesn’t use them. In plain terms, he isn’t much of a hero.”
“I’m beginning to think he’s slow myself,” declared Bob Parker. “Betty’s father helps him along a lot. He asks him to all our parties, and fairly throws Miss Hale at his head, and yet——”
“Bob,” interrupted Mary severely, “please speak more respectfully of Betty’s father. You’re making him out a very peculiar person.”
“You know what I mean well enough,” returned Bob calmly. “I mean that he tries to make things pleasant for everybody, and of course Miss Hale and Dr. Eaton are the natural ones to be paired off together.”
“That’s better,” said Mary approvingly. “Yes, I know what you mean, and I admit that Mr. Wales is a merry match-maker with a vengeance, but——”
“Oh, Mary,” interposed Betty hastily, “he doesn’t know a thing about that. I should never dare mention it to him or mother. I’m afraid they wouldn’t think it was exactly—nice.”
“Oh, I didn’t mean to imply that it was intentional assistance he was giving us,” explained Mary, “but the effect is just the same. He’s been a noble ally, but it wasn’t that kind of chances—chances to talk society small talk with the heroine, or to walk and sail with her, and so on,—that I was thinking of.”
“Well, hurry and tell us what you were thinking of, then,” demanded Bob impatiently.
“Well,” Mary began with provoking slowness, “I was thinking of heroic chances. A hero isn’t a hero because he makes love well. The heroine tolerates his love-making because he’s a hero. But somehow down here there’s no chance to be up and doing. If it was only South America, now, and if there was a revolution brewing, and Dr. Eaton should save some of our lives, or get an army together and be elected president or king or whatever the people wanted to elect—why, then of course Miss Hale would admire him tremendously, and the novel would spin along like a top.”