Page:Arthur Stringer--The House of Intrigue.djvu/302

284 Once our bill had been paid we lost our claim on that Island of Enchantment just wide enough from one white damask boundary to the other to hold up two pair of elbows. We were royalty, for an hour, whereupon some other listless-hearted flat-dwelling lady promptly took possession of my chair, reminding me that I was only one in a procession of self-deluded impostors.

Wendy Washburn, who had sat there studying my face, began to look concerned.

"I don't suppose," he finally ventured, "that you know why I'm preaching to you along this particular line?"

"No, I don't," was my reply. "But I do know that preaching isn't ever going to make any difference with me, or even do me any good!"

My note of revolt seemed to disturb him. He even colored a little as he stared across the table at me.

"Oh, I say, you mustn't imagine I'm trying anything so stupid as that!" he cried. "We don't suddenly turn good that way, of course—except in the Elsie books, or at Billy Sunday's revivals!"

"Then why talk about it at all?" I inquired. But that question, apparently, he preferred to leave unanswered.