The Land of Content. Edith Barnard Delano
and she nodded.
"Well, there are only two ways of doing that. There used to be three. There was a time when a man could accumulate a fortune by saving; but in this day and generation no accumulation of savings amounts to what we call a fortune. Nowadays a man can dig up a fortune; or he can so follow the daring of his imagination as to make a reality of what only existed, before, in his own ambitious dreams. I think it is safe to say that all but one per cent. of the great fortunes that are got together nowadays are done so by the exercising and ordering of a man's imagination. Well, I've made such use of mine that I'm a rich man, as far as money goes, at forty-three. Now my imagination is busy along new lines. Money is only the key: I want to enter the garden. I believe she'd realize every ideal I have! You are quite right. There's nobody like her!"
His face flushed deeply as he spoke, but Mrs. Maxwell was not looking at him. "Oh, dear," she sighed, "I do wish she were not quite so—odd!"
"Not odd," Flood contradicted, though pleasantly enough, "but supreme!"
Mrs. Maxwell's eyebrows went up. Ordinarily she was too conscious of what might be expected of her breeding to be disloyal to her sister; but Cecilia was not an angel.
"She is supremely full of notions," she remarked. "How any girl with her money can prefer—actually prefer—to dress as she does, and to live as she does, and to go about with one maid between us—I cannot understand it! She doesn't spend a thousand a year on her clothes, and she doesn't own so much as one motor car! You may call that sort of thing supreme; I call it odd!"
Pendleton had come out and joined Rosamund. They were obviously unaware of Flood's gaze, but Mrs. Maxwell rather disdainfully noticed that his look had softened as she spoke.
"Yes," he said, "that is unusual, as far as my experience goes; but I rather think she is quite capable of doing the unexpected. That's another part of her charm for me. I can only guess at what she would do or think, you know. And she's so far beyond me that while money is almost the whole show to me, it doesn't count at all, with her! Jove! I wish she might have the spending of mine!"
Mrs. Maxwell fairly shivered at the thought of Flood's millions going to waste, as she expressed it to herself; but fortunately for her peace of mind luncheon was announced, and they went into the little Dutch dining-room to investigate the cucumbers and cream.
At the table Rosamund lost some of her pensiveness; and when they came out again to the sight of the fields where the armies had fought and died, and were once more in the car, she bent towards Flood with eyes burning with excitement, lips parted and hands clasped.
"Oh," she cried, "I am glad, so glad I came, Mr. Flood! It is going to be a wonderful afternoon! I am thrilling even now! The suffering and the sacrifice and the glory! They have left their marks everywhere, haven't they?"
Flood looked at her with admiration so engrossing as to make him scarcely aware of what she said; Pendleton was discussing roads with the chauffeur, but Mrs. Maxwell turned in her seat.
"What on earth are you talking about, Rosamund?" she demanded.
"The battlefield!" the girl explained. "The field and the marking stones, the orchard where Father was wounded—all, all of it! I am going over it bit by bit, every inch of it, and I'm going to thrill, thrill, thrill! Probably cry, too!" she added. "I hope you brought your vanity-box along, Cecilia!"
"But, my dear child, we are going to the Summit! We are going to see Eleanor!"
For once Cecilia welcomed the thought of Eleanor, but Rosamund only laughed.
"Mr. Flood will bring us another day to see Eleanor," she said, "won't you, Mr. Flood? To-day, Cissy darling, I am going to see Battlesburg—just as if I were a tourist!"
Mrs. Maxwell looked at her in amazement. "Rosamund!" she cried. "Mr. Flood! Marshall! Marshall! Please! Mr. Flood, you certainly did not bring us on this trip to go sight-seeing, did you? Marshall, did you ever hear anything so absurd? Rosamund wants to go paddling about in this—this graveyard!"
Rosamund was unabashed. "Yes, of course I do!" she said. "So do you, don't you, Mr. Flood? And, Marshall, you know you've wanted to fight a battle over again ever since the last one we had at my ninth birthday party, when I pulled your hair and you were too polite to smack me!"
"I never wanted to fight in all my life, Rosamund," Pendleton drawled. "Certainly not on a day like this, and after a Dutch midday dinner."
Flood was embarrassed, and looked it; but Mrs. Maxwell gave him no chance to reply. "Rosamund, I hate to speak so plainly," she said, "but there are times when you go too far with your absurdities. Nobody goes sight-seeing; we are Mr. Flood's guests, and we have miles of steep road to get over this afternoon; you cannot upset his plans in this way. Besides, it's altogether too warm for exertion—and emotion. You'll have to get your thrills in some less strenuous way. I simply refuse to be dragged over any battlefield in existence."
Mrs. Maxwell sank back in her corner, and resolutely looked away; Rosamund, still smiling, turned towards Flood.
"We'll leave her in the car to amuse Marshall, and we'll take one of those funny little carriages, won't we, Mr. Flood?"
Her smile and little air of confidence brought color to Flood's face; he opened and closed his hands nervously. His boasted imagination failed him. The lady of his dreams was doing the unexpected. His voice showed his perplexity.
"My dear Miss Randall, I'd do anything in the world to please you! There are some miles of mountain roads to be gone over, if we are to get back to-night, but"—he leaned towards her—"when you ask me, you know I could not refuse you anything in the world, even at the risk of Mrs. Maxwell's displeasure!"
His words and manner instantly accomplished all that Cecilia's insistence had failed to do. Immediately Rosamund's face lost its bright eagerness for the same indifferent coldness that she usually showed him.
"Oh, by all means, let us remember the mountain roads, Mr. Flood," she said, leaning back upon the yielding cushion, turning her head to look listlessly out of the car.
"Oh, please!" poor Flood exclaimed.
Cecilia began to chatter gaily, and Marshall bent over his road maps. The car flew out of the town, noiselessly except for the faint humming of its swift onrush, the modern song of the road. But, to Rosamund, there was no melody in the song; she was out of tune with the day, with her companions, with the ride itself.
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