“Good evening! It’s mighty nice to see you back again,” said Burgess, smiling.
It was at this instant that Susan, hearing the god of adventure sounding the call to arms, became Susie again.
“I’m very glad to see you, Mr. Burgess,” she replied; and ceasing to fondle the bronze lion’s left ear she gave the banker her hand. “Summer is hanging on,” observed Susie; “it’s quite warm this evening.”
“It is, indeed, and most of our neighbors seem to be staying away late; but I’m glad you’re back.”
Susie was glad he was back. Her superficial knowledge of Mr. Webster Burgess bore wholly upon his standing as a banker. In the year she had spent in his ancestral city she had never heard anything to justify a suspicion that he was a gentleman given to flirtations with strange young women. There was something quite cozy and neighborly in his fashion of addressing her. His attitude seemed paternal rather than otherwise. He undoubtedly mistook her for a member of the Logan household. It crossed her mind that he probably knew little of the Logan family, who had occupied the new house only to leave it; but she knew there were several Logan girls, for she was occupying the room designed for one of them.
“This is what I call downright good luck!” Burgess continued, glancing at his watch. “Mrs. Burgess reaches town at six, with her sister—and Brown Pendleton, the explorer, and so on. We met him at Little Boar’s Head, and you know how Mrs. Burgess is—she wanted to be sure he saw this town right. A mighty interesting chap—his father left him a small mint, and he spends his income digging. He’s dug up about all the Egyptians, Babylonians and Ninevites. He’s coming out to make a speech—thinks of prying into the mound-builders; though I don’t see why any one should. Do you?”
“On the whole I think the idea rather tickles me,” said Susie. “I always thought it would be fun to try a lid-lifter on the dead past.”
Mr. Burgess took note of her anew and chuckled.
“Open up kings like sardines! I like your way of putting it.”
“A few canned kings for domestic consumption,” added Susie, thinking that he was very easy to talk to. The fact that he did not know her from a daughter of the royal house of Rameses made not the slightest difference now that the adventurous spirit of the old Susie days possessed her.