At last they heard Mrs. Leighton saying, "And have you heard from the
publishers about your book yet?"
Then Miss Woodburn cut in, before her father could answer: "The coase of
commercialism is on that, too. They are trahing to fahnd oat whethah it
will pay."
"And they are right-quite right," said the Colonel. "There is no longer
any other criterion; and even a work that attacks the system must be
submitted to the tests of the system."
"The system won't accept destruction on any othah tomes," said Miss
Woodburn, demurely.
XI.
At the reception, where two men in livery stood aside to let him pass up
the outside steps of the house, and two more helped him off with his
overcoat indoors, and a fifth miscalled his name into the drawing-room,
the Syracuse stone-cutter's son met the niece of Mrs. Horn, and began at
once to tell her about his evening at the Dryfooses'. He was in very good
spirits, for so far as he could have been elated or depressed by his
parting with Alma Leighton he had been elated; she had not treated his
impudence with the contempt that he felt it deserved; she must still be
fond of him; and the warm sense of this, by operation of an obscure but
well-recognized law of the masculine being, disposed him to be rather
fond of Miss Vance.
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