"I well remember that man," said Mrs. MacDonald, "and his wife too when I lived with my husband on the island in my youth. Let me see—Mary her name was. They were God-fearing folk, and didn't wear any such grand clothes as you do, not even for their Sunday best."
"I paint people's portraits, you see, and have to live in cities," explained Ian calmly, though he had grown lazy as he grew rich and had not painted. "My clothes suit my trade and way of life better than my father's would, I think; though, as for my brains, my father's hat would have been too big for them."
"I dare say you are right about the brains. You are that youth who went off to America under the name of Somerled," Mrs. MacDonald severely remarked. "I have read of you in the newspapers; but I never approved of you, sir. It's not man's work, to my mind, smearing canvas with paint, and encouraging silly women to be vain of their faces."
"My portraits aren't considered to have that effect," returned Somerled; "rather the contrary, in some cases. And I'm sorry you don't approve of me, because that makes a bad opening for what I've come to say. However, it can't be helped. I know Mrs. Ballantree MacDonald slightly; met her in America——"
"If you think an acquaintance with that woman will recommend you to me, sir, you are mightily mistaken," was the answer he got.
"I mention it to make you understand why, when I met her daughter last night, I felt it my duty to do what I could, being of the same name and not quite a stranger to the family."
"Oh, you felt it your duty! Then you're the person mentioned in a letter I received from a certain Mrs. West, according to herself a writer of books. I do not read her sort of books, and never heard of her. 'Motor novels' indeed! What worse than nonsense! Little enough sense fools must have to buy them! If you have come from this Mrs. West, you can tell her from me, as she has made her bed she may lie in it. She has not taken under her roof my granddaughter, but the daughter of Mrs. Ballantree MacDonald, the play actress. I did my best for the girl, striving to bring her up to be a good and modest woman, despite the bad blood of the mother who broke my son's heart and killed him, who did what she could, and has been doing what she could in the years since, to disgrace our house. I might have known I should strive in vain, and I did know at heart. Vanity and extravagance and fondness of pleasure were Barbara Ballantree's undoing. I preserved her daughter from those dangers, and gave her a religious education. Levity was sternly rebuked in her. She had no young acquaintances to teach her foolishness, or tell her of her mother's sin. She was allowed no money to fritter away on vanities, no silly novels to read, such as those your friends write, no frivolous pursuits which could distract her mind from duty—yet she is her mother over again, and, like her mother, runs away from my house by stealth, in the dead of night."
"It wasn't ten o'clock when I met her in the railway station," Somerled defended the absent. "She was then not very stealthily seeking a train for London, where she expected to find her mother. Mrs. West has written you, I know, and told you everything that happened. For my part, I've called to speak of a plan I have in mind for your granddaughter. The telegram you sent Mrs. West seemed——"
"The telegram I sent Mrs. West? I've sent no telegram to her nor any one. I don't send telegrams."
"Indeed?" stammered Somerled, taken aback. "I understood—Mrs. West believed the telegram to be from you——"