"
"I don't think he is sick, Minnie," she said, with a catch in her voice.
"I--I think he is just dev--devilish!"
Well, I thought that too, so I just stroked her hand, and after a minute
she got her color again. "It is hard for him," she said. "He thinks this
is all vulgar and American, and--oh, Minnie, I want to get away, and yet
what shall I do without you to keep me sensible."
"You'll be a long ways off soon," I said, touching the ring under my
hand.
"I wish you could come with me," she said, but I shook my head.
"Here is one dog that isn't going to sit under any rich man's table and
howl for crumbs," I answered. "If he kicked ME, I'd bite him."
At eleven o'clock we had the clambake with beer in the kitchen, and Mr.
von Inwald came, after all. They were really very cheerful, all of them.
Doctor Barnes insisted that Senator Biggs must not fast any longer, and
he ate by my count three dozen clams. At the end, when everybody was
happy and everything forgiven, Mr. Pierce got up and made a speech.
He said he was sorry for what had happened that day, but that much he
had said he still maintained: that to pretend to make people well in
the way most sanatoriums did it was sheer folly, and he felt his
responsibility too keenly to countenance a system that was clearly wrong
and that the best modern thought considered obsolete.
Miss Cobb sat up at that; she is always talking about the best modern
thought.
He said that perfect health, clear skins, bright eyes--he looked at the
women, and except for Miss Patty, there wasn't an honest complexion or a
bright eye in the lot--keen appetites and joy of living all depended on
rational and simple living.
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