he went on, without defining more exactly that large specification. “It’s simply stupendous the things she knows!… And she’s such a nice person,” he said quietly. “One of the nicest people that I ever knew—just what an old maid ought to be—don’t you think so?”
“Yes. But why is she an old maid? Why did she never get married?”
“Hm,” said Joel thoughtfully, looking down the road with a detached, abstracted stare. “I can’t say…. She’s awfully rich,” he whispered. “Enormously rich—she has loads of money—she’s been able to do just as she pleased all her life—she’s been everywhere—all over the world—and I suppose that’s the reason that she never married. She never found anyone that she liked well enough to give up the kind of life she had…. But she’s an amazing person…. Don’t you think so?”
“Yes,” the other said.
They walked on down the road, and presently they saw the great white shape of Joel’s house, framed in the trees before them, and below them in the light and distance of a westering sun, the shine and wink of the great river. They entered the house.
LXV
The Paston estate, like the Pierce estate, was situated upon the river, but several miles farther north. To reach it, they drove through the eastern entrance of the Pierce place and through the little Dutch Colonial village of Leydensberg, of which Joel’s father was the mayor and which the Pierce family largely owned.
“It’s a pity Pups never went into politics,” Joel whispered, as they drove through the old leafy village, with its pleasant houses among which a few of the lonely white houses of the Colonial period still remained. “The people around here worship him: he could have anything he wanted if he ran for office.”
It was the first time he had spoken of his father: with a feeling of sharp surprise, the other youth now remembered that he had not seen Mr. Pierce since his arrival: he wondered where he was, but did not ask. He also now remembered that Joel’s references to his father had often been marked by a note of resignation and regret—the tone a person uses when he speaks of someone who has possessed talents and wasted opportunities, and whose life has come to nothing.
Their road led northward from the village: they sped swiftly along a paved highway bordered by trees and fields and woods, by houses here and
