Mrs. Percy-Bartlett swung around on the music-stool and looked earnestly into Gertrude’s face.
“He’s not a society man, my dear girl. He could have the entrée if he wanted it. His people are very prominent in Connecticut, and he was in the best set at Yale. But, do you know, although he has plenty of money, he is quite ambitious in a very queer line.”
“Yes?” questioned Gertrude, curious regarding her friend’s feelings toward Richard.
“Yes. He is a newspaper man. He’s on the Trumpet, you know, and has been wonderfully successful in some way or other. He writes awfully bright things for the editorial page. Percy-Bartlett says that it is a most unusual thing for a man as young as Richard Stoughton to jump at a bound into such a prominent position.”
“A newspaper man. Isn’t that amusing! I never met one before.”
“Well,” commented the musician, turning around and drumming softly on the piano, “there is one thing to be said about them; they have to be bright, or they couldn’t be newspaper men.”
“That is a very sweeping assertion,” remarked Gertrude, smiling in amusement. “I wonder if it applies to newspaper women.”
“I don’t know; I never met one,” answered Mrs. Percy-Bartlett coldly.
“But tell me,” persisted Gertrude, her blue eyes dark with mischief; “what are you going to do with him?”
Almost unconsciously Mrs. Percy-Bartlett began to play the air she had composed to Heine’s poem on the pine-tree that dreamed of the palm. Suddenly she ceased playing, and gazed earnestly at Gertrude.