Nevertheless the Half Way house welcomed a hungry, cross, disgruntled aggregation of mountain climbers.
Said Jack as the guide bid him good-bye, "Don't you ever get tired of seeing these peak scalers come near the place? They are all alike on the home stretch, if they are able to stand up at all."
"I must say I do. I wouldn't care if no one ever again wanted to make that fool climb. Why, that senseless trip has often put folks to the bad for months. They can ride up Pike's Peak, but they don't know what climbing is until they tackle that old fellow. Well, adios; I'll say this much, you've been the jolliest party this season."
It was nine o'clock when the hotel was reached, and it was noon of the next day before a lot of crippled tourists managed to limp into the dining room, leaving a trail of arnica and pain killers everywhere they went.
"Oh, isn't this just lovely," said Miss Asquith, as Cal rolled her in an invalid chair to her place at the table.
It was a couple of days before the effects of the Long's Peak trip abated to a degree that recreation once more became a pleasure. During the days of sight seeing and exploration of Estes Park, Chiquita had opportunity to study the character of the saleslady depicted by Miss Asquith, but she had little chance to talk with the lady on whom the years sat as easily as upon one in her teens, and whose vivacious temperament was contagious. The enforced respite gave plenty of time for recounting interesting episodes in Miss Asquith's life, which she did with charming grace.
To many, Miss Asquith seemed affected. The spontaneous spark of a jovial, witty disposition burned just as brightly in her at forty-five as it did a generation before, but the critic would not have it so. "It is put on, it is not natural, it is out of place; she had better be saying her beads preparatory to being buried," were some of the unkind remarks heard.
Hazel said to Jack, "She shocks one at first with her display of artlessness as a stock in trade, until you learn by experience that it is natural."
"I presume, my dear, there are people at eighty who condemn the 'kittenish' actions of some at ninety, the same as those of thirty criticise Miss Asquith. Is it envy?"
"I'll tell you, Chiquita," said the lady in question the day after the peak episode, "I find great enjoyment in being jolly, full of fun, possibly at times breaking all written rules of decorum and dignity; for why should we poor mortals go around with a long face, rigid arms and mouths full of pious ejaculations just because the Puritans brought that style from across the water? I have been doped on fashion for a quarter of a century, and fashions change, but in that time I have learned that to laugh is to be with the world. To weep is to be alone. Better be a little frivolous with good appetite than strain at dignity and wail with dyspepsia. This etiquette and form is only skin deep any way."