“Oh, I don’t know.”
“Don’t you?” Harlan asked, with a slight amusement, and added reflectively: “Martha Shelby won’t like this much, I dare say.”
“No,” Mrs. Oliphant said faintly. “Poor Martha!”
“Oh, look here!” her husband remonstrated. “What’s the use of all this? You’re acting as if we were facing a calamity. Dan’s got a mighty good head on his shoulders; he wouldn’t fall in love with a mere little goose. Besides, didn’t I ask you: ‘What can you tell from a photograph?’ ”
“Not everything, sir,” Harlan interposed. “But you can usually get an idea of the type of person it’s a photograph of.”
“Yes, you can,” Mrs. Oliphant said. “That’s what frightens me. She doesn’t seem the type that would want to take care of him when he’s sick and be interested in his business and help him. She might even be the type that wouldn’t like living here, after New York, and would get to complaining and want to take him away. Of course it is true we can’t tell from that photograph, though.”
“Can’t you?” Harlan asked with a short laugh. “Then why are you so disturbed by it?”
“That’s sense,” his father said approvingly. “If you can’t tell anything about her, what’s the sense of worrying?”
“It doesn’t appear that you got my point, sir,” Harlan remarked. “You and mother are both disturbed because you have drawn certain conclusions.”
“From that picture?”