"Well?" she said.
"Well!" exclaimed Richard. "It could not have been better!"
"Couldn't it?" she said, looking down a little meditatively.
"No," he responded, with excellent good cheer, "and you see how simple it was, and—and how unnecessary it is to exaggerate it and call it by unpleasant names. What we want is merely to come in contact with these people, and show them how perfectly harmless we are, and that when the time comes they may favor us without injury to themselves or any one else. That's it in a nutshell."
"We always say 'us,' don't we?" said Bertha,—"as if we were part-proprietors of the Westoria lands ourselves. It is a little confusing, don't you think so?"
She paused and looked up with one of her sudden smiles.
"Still I don't feel exactly sure that I have been—but no, I am not to call it lobbying, am I? What must I call it? It really ought to have a name."
"Don't call it anything," said Richard, faintly conscious of his dubiousness again.
"Why, what a good idea!" she answered. "What a good way of getting round a difficulty—not to give it a name! It almost obliterates it, doesn't it? It is an actual inspiration. We won't call it anything. There is so much in a name—too much, on the whole, really. But—without giving it a name—I have behaved pretty well and advanced our—your—whose interests?"