“And have you reached it?”
“I fear not, old man. Decisions are hard to arrive at, John, are they not?”
“They are, indeed,” assented Fenton sadly, as he said good-night.
CHAPTER XIV.
“I sent for you to cheer me up, Gertrude, but, really, you’re the most depressing creature I’ve seen in a long time. You’re not like yourself at all. What is the matter?”
Mrs. Percy-Bartlett and Gertrude Van Vleck were spending an afternoon together, indulging in what the former called “boudoir repentance.” Lent had come, and the reaction from social gayety had caused society to sit down for a time and try to think. Sackcloth and ashes were very becoming to Mrs. Percy-Bartlett; for she had never looked more attractive to the eyes of Gertrude Van Vleck than she did at that moment, as she drew her chair close to her friend’s side, and, taking her hand, smiled up into her troubled face questioningly.
“You have something on your mind, Gertrude; I am sure of it. Tell me what it is.”
Gertrude Van Vleck’s clear-cut face was paler than its wont, and there were dark circles under her eyes.
“You are mistaken, Harriet,” she answered evasively. “I always feel a certain depression when Lent begins. I suppose that that is very becoming on my part. Lent means more to us, whose days are nearly all Easters, than to people who spend their whole lives in the shadow of self-sacrifice and denial. Do you know, Harriet, I sometimes feel a great pity for the worried and overworked world that lies outside our set. It seems so unjust that a few of us should have all the good things of the earth, while the millions are obliged to toil and sicken and die in the mere effort to get enough to eat and wear.”