A third pair of eyes surveyed Anne with interest as she sat by Molly.
"Corking kid," said the owner of the eyes to himself.
His name was Maxwell Sears. He was not in the least like Murray Flint. He was from the Middle West, he was red-blooded, and he cared nothing for the past. He held it as a rather negligible honor that he had a Declaration-signing ancestor. The important things to Maxwell were that he was representing his district in Congress; that he was still young enough to carry his college ideals into politics, and that he had just invested a small portion of the fortune which his father had left him in a model stock farm in Illinois.
For the rest, he was big, broad-shouldered, clean-minded. Now and then he looked up at the stars, and what he saw there swayed him level with the men about him. Because of the stars he called no man a fool, except such as deemed himself wiser than the rest. Because he believed in the people they believed in him. It was that which had elected him. It was that which would elect him again.
"Corking kid," said Maxwell Sears, with his smiling eyes on Anne.
In the course of the evening Maxwell managed an introduction. He found Anne quaint and charming. That she was reading Dickens amused him. He had thought that no one read Dickens in these days. How did it happen?
She said that she had discovered him for herself--many years ago.
Well, to be explicit, ten. She had been eleven when she had found a new world in the fat little books. They had a lot of old books. She loved them all. But Dickens more than any. Didn't he?
He did. "His heart beat with the heart of the common people. It was that which made him great."
Anne pondered. "Well, he's a family friend. We girls were brought up on him."
"Yes. Anything Murray likes we are expected to like. If he doesn't like things we don't."
Maxwell looked and knew the type. "But you don't agree about Dickens?"
"No. And Amy says that Murray's wiser than I. But I'm not sure. Amy thinks that all men are wiser than women."
Maxwell chuckled. Anne was refreshing. She was far from modern in her modes of thought. She was--he hunted for the word and found it--mid-Victorian in her attitude of mind.
He wondered what Winifred Reed would think of her. Winifred lived in Chicago. She was athletic and intellectual. She wrote tabloid dramas, drove her own car, dressed smartly, and took a great interest in Maxwell's career. She wrote to him once a week, and he always answered her letters. Now and then she failed to write, and he missed her letters and told her so. It was altogether a pleasant friendship.
