A Fool There Was

Excerpt: ...eh? he inquired. Well, you go back to the wicked metropolis and you'll find that my rent is paid and that a coupon's been cut from one of my bonds. And who did it, I'd like to know? Oh, your secretary, or the janitor, or somebody, returned Elinor, easily. Not you. Tom laughed. I must have a very negligible reputation for industry in this menage. How do you think I spend all my time? Elinor, arms akimbo, half faced him. Well, Mr. Bones, she asked. How do you spend all your time? He grinned at her, friendlily. Feeling better, aren't you? I feel so well, she returned, that if this doctor of mine weren't such a Simon Legree, I could play you eighteen holes of golf for a box of gloves against a box of cigars. Gambler! he scoffed. And if I should win, I suppose I'd have to smoke the cigars. Certainly, she countered, easily, if I should have to wear the gloves. He sank back in the big chair. Well, he asserted, it were useless to speculate on that which may never be. I am at present in that interesting state of a man's career where golf doesn't belong. A man who is beyond the first flush of adolescence and not yet in the last pallor of senility, has no business dallying with golf. He's liable to get sunstruck. Muriel, who had been listening with round, wondering eyes, ran to her mother. What does he mean, mother dear? she asked. Elinor replied instead, laughing. Nobody knows, Muriel. Not even he. Now that's unkind, Nell, protested Blake; unkind though true. The child, eyeing them for a minute in serious non-understanding, recurred with the facility of the very young to other things. Oh, mother dear! she cried. We forgot to stick up our letters to daddy. Taking her mother's hand, she led her to the little table. Elinor, left alone with Blake, turned to him and queried: Heard from Jack lately? He shook his head. Not lately. Not since I've seen you. Not enjoying himself much, I suppose, she commented. He...