By the way his hand closed over it, by the look of irresponsible cupidity that appeared in his eyes, she saw that it was indeed useless.
"Then it ought to be used for necessary repairs to the place," she went on. "If we're going to continue to live here, the house must be painted, the roof and the porches mended. Modern implements ought to be got for the farm."
"I will consider all that," he said loftily.
"Better let me take it to town and deposit it," said Pen. "It will make too much talk if you put it in the Island bank."
He shook his head obstinately. "It will improve our credit locally."
Pen shrugged and let the matter drop. After all she was not implicated. Men must be left to follow their own blind ways, she told herself.
At eight o'clock an automobile was at the door. Riever's people having had the worst places in the road mended at his expense, had brought this car down the Neck for his use around the Point. The millionaire resented having to put foot to the common earth any more than he could help—or perhaps it would be more correct to say that his entourage resented it. Riever, like all potentates, was largely at the mercy of his entourage. The Alexandra was crowded with "friends," secretaries, servants and persons of undefined status whose sole object in life lay in maintaining Riever's unacknowledged state. Three-quarters of Pen was appalled at the existence of such a situation in a democratic country, but the remaining quarter of her found it undeniably pleasant to share in his state. Everything about Riever moved with so beautiful a precision.
For instance, she was carried down to the old steamboat wharf which had likewise been mended. As the automobile turned in front of the wharf the speed-boat drew alongside with Riever in it. They leaped to the Island. As they stepped out of the boat, before them was the car to take them to town, waiting with its engine running. Pen saw at once that it was not one of the ordinary cars used to carry Riever's mail back and forth, but a vehicle imported for this occasion. It was an astonishing car of foreign make, long and rakish in line with an immense aluminum engine hood and a smart, diminutive, coupé body. In other words, it represented unimagined power to carry around two little plutocrats; the last word in luxury. The driver rode outside.
It was Pen's first ride in a superlative car. The springs were miraculous. One was but faintly aware of wheels underneath. The body swam along as smoothly as a high-bred lady, only curtseying slowly now and then to a rut. It was all slightly unreal to Pen. As they whirled through the village she had glimpses of the staring Islanders. It was only too clear what they were thinking. When an Island boy and his girl went to town together they generally came home married.
It was a clear fresh morning. Pen would have loved to lean back in her cushioned corner and give herself up to the flying panorama through the windows. Nowadays there are few roads left like that in our country. The prospect was of a peaceful, long-settled land with nothing garish nor raw; not a factory, not a railway, not a rich man's house the whole way. But miles of pine woods, many old farms, a sleepy village now and then, glimpses of the blue Bay from high land; a rickety bridge over an arm of the Bay.