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ward, " and I hoped we could ride out together, but she called up about two and asked would I mind if she went on home in the Pierce. She was through with her shopping and she hates to be away from the house and the kiddies any longer than she can help. Celia's a great home girl. You'd never know she was the same girl now as the girl I married seven years ago. I mean she's different. I mean she's not the same. I mean her marriage and being a mother has developed her. Did you ever see her? I mean in pictures?"
" I think I did once," replied Bartlett. " Dirln't she play the young sister in ' The Cad'? "
" Yes, with Harold Hodgson and Marie Blythe."
" I thought I'd seen her. I remember her as very pretty and vivacious."
" She certainly was ! And she is yet ! I mean she's even prettier, but of course she ain't a kid, though she looks it. I mean she was only seventeen in that picture and that was ten years ago. I mean she's twenty-seven years old now. But I never met a girl with as much zip as she had in those days. It's remarkable how marriage changes them. I mean nobody would ever thought Celia Sayles would turn out to be a sit-by-the-fire. I mean she still likes a good time, but her home and kiddies come first. I mean her home and kiddies come first."
" I see what you mean," said Bartlett.
An hour's drive brought them to Ardsley-on-Hudson and the great man's home.
" A wonderful place!" Bartlett exclaimed with a heroic semblance of enthusiasm as the car turned in at an arc de triomphe of a gateway and approached a white house that might have been mistaken for the Yale Bowl.
" It ought to be! " said Gregg. " I mean I've spent enough on it. I mean these things cost money."
He indicated with a gesture the huge house and Urbanesque landscaping.
" But no amount of money is too much to spend on home. I mean it's a good investment if it tends to make your family proud and satisfied with their home. I mean every nickel I've spent here is like so much insurance; it insures me of a happy wife and family. And what more can a man ask! "
Bartlett didn't know, but the topic was forgotten in the business of leaving the resplendent Rolls and entering the even more resplendent reception hall.