"Of course you will!" she agreed heartily. At the mere sound of his bright, confident voice she believed in his ability to succeed in anything whatever.
"Yes, of course I will. And it's nice to have you say so. The only question about it," he pursued, "is whether it's a big enough opportunity for me. But I'll make it big enough. I'll make the paper grow—and the paper will make the town grow. See? All Shadyville needs is enterprise—enterprise and advertising."
"Yes," she agreed again. An hour earlier she would have been ready to protect Shadyville's sacred precincts from the vandals of "enterprise" and "advertising" with her own slim fist, but here she was handing over the keys of the town to modern commercialism without a qualm of hesitation. "You're just what Shadyville needs, Ted," she added earnestly.
"I thought you'd feel that way about it!" And his voice was exultant. "You always were a good pal, Sheila!"
And at the tribute Sheila had a swift conception of woman's mission as the perfect comrade. Oh, that was a mission to thrill and inspire one, to move one to high and selfless endeavor! And she dedicated herself, in the secrecy of her own mind, to the cause of Ted and the Shadyville Star.
Throughout the next few weeks she was, indeed, the perfect comrade. She who had never before been interested in the spectacle of actual, contemporary life, flung herself now, with a fervor which not even her personal ambitions had excited, into the business of life's presentment through the daily press, and in particular through the medium of the Shadyville Star. She read newspapers avidly; she suggested subjects for editorials to Ted; she came down to the office of the Shadyville Daily Star—under Mrs. Caldwell's reluctant chaperonage—to see the linotype machine which had been installed in honor of Ted's reign. She even read proof on the tumultuous day which preceded the transformed Star's first appearance.
Peter watched her in amazement. "But I thought newspapers bored you!" he exclaimed one afternoon when, coming to read his beloved Theocritus with her, he found Sheila immersed in a whirlwind of New York papers, from which she was industriously clipping items for reprint in the Star.
"Oh," she cried, in the rapturous voice of the devotee, "I didn't understand how wonderful newspaper work could be! Why, Peter—I've got my finger on the pulse of the world!"
At which Peter put his Theocritus back into the safety of his pocket lest even its tranquil spirit be corrupted by the fever of journalism.
To Ted Sheila's magnificent energy in his behalf, her unflagging comprehension and sympathy, were steps by which he mounted blithely to his goal. How could he fail with Sheila to stimulate him, to assist him, to believe in him?