Robert whistled softly. “Offended, is she? Well, she ought to know that you’re never effusive. I’ve tried to flirt with her a bit, and strike an average.”
“Strike an average, Robert?” Mrs. Nixon spoke anxiously. “Tell me directly what you mean. Did my behavior make you feel that to be necessary?”
“Well,” the son puffed out his lips, “what with Uncle Henry’s deafness, and your Vere-de-Vere repose, it has seemed to me at times that it was rather dull for a maiden stowed there in the stage beside you. I made a few essays, as I say, to jolly her, but—well, I can’t say they were successful. One doesn’t care to have one’s sweet and cheery conversation treated like the tunefulness of a string of sleigh-bells. Miss Maynard invariably makes me feel the drifting snow when I try to chirk her up.”
“She’ll be a success then,” responded Mrs. Nixon, with conviction; and while her son stared at this comment, she went on: “I am glad of all the civility you have shown her, Robert. It is not natural to me, as you say, to be talkative or—or gushing, and yet I’ve always been perfectly civil to Miss Maynard. I’m sure of that. You never noticed anything else, did you?”
Robert looked as he felt, increasingly puzzled.
“No, mother. What’s up? Has Miss Maynard been complaining to Uncle Henry?”
“No. I complain of your Uncle Henry that he has not been frank with me. When he suggested the convenience to him of taking his stenographer on this trip, and said she could hook my gowns, he should have told me that the very presentable, quiet girl I had so often seen in his office was a probable heiress.”
“What?” Robert sat up and his voice broke into the high register. “You don’t say so! I don’t blame him. There’s too many a slip about that sort of possibility.”
“It’s settled,” said Mrs. Nixon solemnly. “It was settled to-day. She is one; and from what your uncle says, the fortune is large.”
Robert clasped his hands and lifted his eyes. “I’ve always admired her nose. How much straighter it will be now!” he ejaculated devoutly.