"It'll do you good," said Susan encouragingly. "I don't like the taste myself, but it'll do you good. Besides, Mrs. Lathrop, you must begin to get used to it. When you go around with Jathrop in his private car, you'll have to drink wine, and if I was you, I'd stop tying a stocking around your neck nights, for you'll have to wear a very different cut of gowns soon. If Jathrop buys that yacht he's gone to look at, you'll have to wear a sailor blouse."
"Oh," said Mrs. Lathrop faintly, "oh, Susan, I--" Miss Clegg put her hastily back into her chair.
"Never mind if it does make your head go 'round a little, Mrs. Lathrop; you must learn how. It may be hard, but it'll make Jathrop happy, and now he's come back rich, that's what everybody wants to do.
"Mrs. Brown says next time he comes she's going to make him a jet-black pound-cake, and Mrs. Allen says she's going to work him a pincushion. She says it'll be a plain, simple token of affection, but those whom Fortune smiles on soon learn to know the true worth of a simple gift of purest love. She says no one has ever known how she loved Jathrop, 'cause she kept it to herself for fear you'd think she was after him for Polly."
"I must," said Susan. "Oh, Mrs. Lathrop, think of his giving me those fifty shares of stock just on account of my long-suffering friendship for you. I declare he's a great character--that's all I can say.
"I always had a feeling he'd end in some unusual way; when they started to lynch him, I thought that was the way, but now I see that this was the way, and I thank heaven that I wasn't right the other time and am right this time. For human nature is human nature, Mrs. Lathrop, and people are always kinder to a woman whose son comes home from the Klondike a millionaire than they are if they had the bother of lynching him, no matter how much he may have deserved it."
Mrs. Lathrop continued to finger her solitaire earrings in happy silence. Miss Clegg, who never exhibited any tenderness toward anything, went over and arranged the fold-over of her friend's gold-embroidered, silk-quilted kimono.
"I'll be glad when your new hair gets here, Mrs. Lathrop," she said tenderly, "it'll make a different woman of you. It's astonishing what a little extra hair can do; I always feel that when I put on my wave.