The girl waiting in the disordered office looked more than ever like a bridesmaid rose, pink and ruffled and out of its proper setting, as she saw Mr. Percival coming.

"Miss Quincy," said d.i.c.k, "I have a motor down stairs, and I'll take you up to the house right away, if you don't mind."

If she didn't mind!

When youth starts out to revolutionize the world, it meets with many distractions. Even in the hour that d.i.c.k spent in the quiet old library with Miss Quincy, he met with distractions. He tried to keep her mind on missals and Aldine editions, but she persisted in poring over old copies of _G.o.dey's Lady's Book_, which she found tucked away in a forgotten corner. n.o.body but Lena could have scented them out.

"The fashions are so funny, Mr. Percival!" she insisted. "Do look at these preposterous hoop-skirts and the little short waists. Did you say that no one knows how that gold leaf was put on that ugly old book? How absurd! I must put that down. I suppose that is the kind of thing I have to write up."

"Be sure you don't get mixed up and describe monkish fichus and gold leaf on the bias, or you'll be everlastingly disgraced in the office."

"Never mind. I'll learn your horrid old pieces of information in a few minutes. Do let me look at this a little longer," Lena answered so prettily, and pointed with so dainty a finger, and glanced up so pathetically, that d.i.c.k too became absorbed in _G.o.dey's Lady's Book_.

"Weren't they frightful guys?" Lena went on. "But I dare say the men of that time--what is the date?--1862--thought they were lovely."

"Very likely, poor men! You see they hadn't the privilege of knowing the girls of to-day and they thought their own women were the top-notch."

"Now you are horrid and sarcastic," said Lena.

"Never a bit. I find it impossible to believe that there was ever before so much beauty in the world. There was here and there a pretty girl, like Helen of Troy, and they made an awful fuss over her."

"But she must have been really wonderful."

"Yes, if a girl is as much run after as that, she must either be a raving beauty or else she lives in the far West."

"But, you know, there aren't so very many real beauties nowadays, are there?" She glanced sidewise at him in an adorable manner.

"I can't remember more than one--or two," said d.i.c.k judicially.

Lena laughed softly.

"I think it must have been very nice to be one of the few and be made a fuss over, instead of--"

"Instead of what?"

"Instead of having to grub and struggle for your bread," Lena answered,--and there was a misty look in the big eyes she turned up to him.

"Poor little girl!" said d.i.c.k. "You certainly are not of the kind who ought to battle with the world. Haven't you any man who could shelter you a little?"

Lena shook her head, with an air of patient suffering.

"My father is dead," she said. "He was of a good family, as you might know by my name, but he was wounded in the war, and he never got over it. Of course he was very young then. He wasn't married till long afterward. He died when I was a little thing."

"That was the history of my father, too!" d.i.c.k felt a glow of kindred experience. "See, that is his portrait over the mantel."

Lena looked very lovely and spiritual as she gazed up at the quiet face that looked back at her, and d.i.c.k watched her. Then she drew a full breath and turned her eyes on him.

"You are like him," she said softly, and something in her voice made the words a thrilling tribute.

Then she added: "Yes, but he left you in comfort, and we--my mother and I--"

"Will you let me come to see your mother some time?"

Lena's heart beat fast with mingled fear and hope, but all d.i.c.k saw was a startled and sweet surprise.

"I should be almost ashamed to have you come," she said with a soft blush and a look of shy invitation. "We are so poor and we live in such a shabby place."

"If your shabbiness comes because of your father's sacrifice for his country it is something to be proud of," d.i.c.k answered.

Through Lena's mind there pa.s.sed a swift memory of quarrels and bickerings, of daily smallnesses, which were her chief recollection of her father. She looked frankly up into d.i.c.k's face.

"Yes," she said. "That ought to make it easy to bear. Now I must not talk about myself any more. What did you tell me about that funny old book?"

"And I may come to see you and your mother?" d.i.c.k persisted.

"If you do not forget us to-morrow,"--Lena glanced at him out of the corner of her eyes in a way calculated to make him remember.

"I shan't forget," said d.i.c.k.

He took out a small note-book and wrote down the address she gave him.

And she gave herself a little shake and pulled out a much larger note-book. "I ought not to waste my time and yours this way, but, you see, I'm not much of a business woman. I sometimes forget altogether."

d.i.c.k thought her very preposterous and charming as she set to work with an air of severity; and so she was--the last thing on earth made to do serious work. They leaned together over one treasure after another, in that electric nearness that moves youth so easily, and sends a tingling sensation up the backbone.

When she suddenly rose, her cheeks were pinker and more transparent than ever, and her eyes softer and dreamier.

"Let me take you home in the motor," said d.i.c.k.

"Dear me, no," Lena exclaimed. "I'm afraid you think me entirely too informal already. I--I'm so stupid and impulsive. I'm always doing wrong things and not thinking till afterward. Good-by, and thank you, Mr.

Percival."

After he had bowed her out, d.i.c.k plunged into a big chair and spent a few moments in a.n.a.lyzing his own character. He perceived that in some ways he differed from most of his friends. Now Ellery and Madeline and most of the others lived along certain conventional lines, with certain fixed interests and habits. That kind of existence would be intolerable to him. He liked to star his days with all kinds of colored incidents that had no particular relation to his main work. He liked to run down every by-path, explore it a bit, and then come back to the highway.

Those small excursions were apt to take a man into leafy dells where there were ferns and flowers too shy to fringe the dusty plodding thoroughfare. d.i.c.k liked that figure. It revealed to him a certain lightness of heart and poetry in himself that distinguished him from the prosy grubbers. This sprinkling of life with episodes was like a little tonic. It kept him vivid and alive.

Take this very afternoon just pa.s.sed. It meant little, of course, either to him or to the pretty little pathetic reporter girl, but it had injected a bit of pleasure into her routine, and given him an insight into another kind of maiden from the well-kept, sheltered women he knew best. Such things help a man's larger sympathies. He was glad that he could enjoy many types of men and women.

A rumble of wheels outside brought him out of this particular by-path into the highway.

"What a dispensation that the mater didn't come home in the middle of it!" he said with a sigh of satisfaction.

CHAPTER VIII

THE FALLS

According to his promise, d.i.c.k presented himself at Ellery's office on the next afternoon. He wore a brisk and moving air.