Mildred wishes me to send you her love, and we both hope soon to receive favorable word of your plans. Cordially yours,
Mrs. Page, upon finishing, let her pleased gaze rove from one to another of her three companions. Jack’s face was eager and happy, Gorham’s interested, but her husband was the first to speak.
"I foresee that I am going to fall in love with that woman," he remarked, breaking open his third muffin and handing his cup to the maid for a second cup of coffee. "That is a charming letter."
"Just an ordinary Chicago production," said Jack exultantly. "What do you say, old Reliable?" he added, turning toward Gorham.
"We are in great luck," returned the latter.
"Now, I will admit," said Jack, "that I have been trying to provide for us all at the Chicago Beach; but I will cease my struggles gratefully."
"When do you want to go, Hilda?" asked Robert Page.
"When can you go, is a more pertinent question," she answered.
"July will, I suppose, be the best time. Would it be heresy, Jack, to inquire if the thermometer in Chicago rises above sixty-five degrees in July? I have understood that it does."
"I know of no city in the country where there is no hot weather in summer," returned Jack shortly. "Chicago is, however, a summer resort."
"I suppose you mean a place where summer resorts. That is what I have heard."
"Perhaps you would better not risk your life there."
"Tut, tut, my boy. I am going to see the writer of that whole-souled letter."
Jack, who had already excused himself from the table, here left the room without deigning a reply, and Mrs. Page immediately looked toward her brother.
"What do you think, Gorham? Of course this is a delightful invitation, but ought we to accept it?"
"I don’t quite see your objection," he answered.
"It is charming of Mrs. Van Tassel, but it is so evidently a sense of duty which impels her to give such an invitation to a mere acquaintance like me, and a stranger like Robert."
"Look here," remarked the latter, looking up vaguely. "I don’t think I want any flaws picked in that invitation."
"Now you keep still, Robert, like a dear. You don’t know her at all, and Gorham does. She is just doing this in Uncle Richard’s name; I know it, and I am not willing to impose upon her."