“You understand, of course, that it’s a dark secret that mother writes. She had scribbled for her own amusement all her life, and published ‘The Madness of May’ just to see what the public would do to it.”
“I understand that it’s immensely amusing,” remarked Deering, thrilling as she turned toward him.
“Oh, you haven’t read it!” she cried. “Mamma, Mr. Tuck hasn’t read your book.”
“My young friend is just beginning his education,” interposed Hood. “I unhesitatingly pronounce ‘The Madness of May’ a classic—something the tired world has been awaiting for years!”
“Right!” cried Pantaloon. “You are quite right, sir. ‘The Madness of May’ isn’t a novel, it’s a text-book on happiness!”
“Truer words were never spoken!” exclaimed Hood with enthusiasm.
“Do you know,” began Deering, when it was possible to address Pierrette directly again, “I don’t believe I was built for this life. I find myself checking off the alphabet on my fingers every few minutes to see if I have gone plumb mad!”
She bent toward him with entreaty in her eyes. He observed that they were brown eyes! In the starlight he had been unable to judge of their color, and he was chagrined that he hadn’t guessed at that first interview that she was a brown-eyed girl. Only a brown-eyed girl would have hung a moon in a tree! Brown eyes are immensely eloquent of all manner of pleasant things—such as mischief, mirth, and dreams. Moreover, brown eyes are so highly sensitized that they receive and transmit messages in the most secret of ciphers, and yet always with circumspection. He was perfectly satisfied with Pierrette’s eyes and relieved that they were not blue, for blue eyes may be cold, and the finest of black eyes are sometimes dull. Gray eyes alone—misty, fathomless gray eyes—share imagination with brown ones. But neither a blue-eyed nor a black-eyed nor a gray-eyed Pierrette was to be thought of. Pierrette’s eyes were brown, as he should have known, and what she was saying to him was just what he should have expected once the color of her eyes had been determined.
“Please don’t! You must never try to understand things like this! You see grandpa and mamma love larking, and this is a lark. We’re always larking, you know.”
Hood’s voice rose commandingly: