Had he overheard the view of her which was ventilated, though surreptitiously, by some of the guests over their supper, his satisfaction might have been somewhat modified.
"I think she's a scream!" declared Myrtle Deibert to the group at her table. "Did you hear what she said to me as we were leaving the Country Club dance last Wednesday evening, when I remarked to her, 'Your husband is so awfully in love with you, Mrs. Leitzel; just see how he is beaming on you from clear across the room!' 'Scowling at me, you mean,' she corrected me. 'Don't you hear our taxicab registering out there while I linger to talk to you?"
This anecdote was met with a shout of laughter, the point of which would certainly have remained obscure to Daniel Leitzel.
"Of course you all heard of her telling mother," said Miss Ocksreider, "that she hated Women's Auxiliaries? And that she wore her grandmother's old furs because she couldn't afford to buy new ones? Mother says"—she lowered her voice and the group at the table closed in a bit closer to catch her words—"that it was a perfect circus to see the consternation of Miss Jennie and Miss Sadie when she said she was poor. Isn't it queer how they are so proud of their money and yet so afraid to spend it?"
"Did you hear," inquired Mrs. Eshelman, "what Mrs. Leitzel said to me last Sunday after church when I told her I'd put a five-dollar gold piece on the collection plate in mistake for a nickel and I had half a mind to ask the usher to let me have it back. 'You might as well,' she said, 'for you know the Lord won't give you credit for more than five cents.'"
"She certainly does go to the ragged edge," Mr. Eshelman added his quota; "I asked her this evening whether she had been to hear the evangelist's address to Women Only, and she said no, what she wanted to hear was a talk to Men Only!"
"What do you think she said to me when I told her," said Mrs. Hostetter, "what a bad boy the son of the Presbyterian pastor is. 'This proverbial badness of minister's children,' she said, 'is often, I think, just the hypocrisy of the minister breaking out.' 'But all ministers are not hypocrites,' I said to her, shocked. 'Of course, unconsciously hypocrites,' she answered. 'They don't deceive any one else as they deceive themselves.' Isn't she queer?" added Mrs. Hostetter, genuinely puzzled.
"She's a peach!" declared Mr. Hostetter.
"Danny must think so," declared Mr. Eshelman, "to open up like this in her honour!" indicating the elaborate supper provided by the city caterer. "Terrapin, mind you, at Danny Leitzel's!"
"And the 'floral decorations!'" breathed Miss Deibert with an appreciative glance at the roses and palms that decorated the dining-room. "It doesn't seem possible, does it?"