“How are you getting on, Phil?” he asked abruptly.
Blair shrugged his shoulders. “Oh, all right enough,” he answered lightly. “I scrape along without too much difficulty. It would be easier in one way if I were to go in with some firm, but—”
“Never do—for you, never in the world!” Stacey interrupted, shaking his head. “You’d feel crushed.”
“Yes, I’d rather go it on my own. I’m all right. Absolutely the only thing that bothers me is not getting enough jobs. I don’t mean because I need them financially, but because—you know how it is—to learn, a man has to see his work in actual stone and brick.”
“You’re too damned good!” said Stacey hotly. “You’ve got the real stuff in you. Here am I, prospering like a—like a pork packer, while you struggle along unappreciated; yet you’re a thousand times better than I.”
“You’re too generous and loyal, Stacey,” Blair returned, with a shake of his fair head. “I couldn’t ever reach your delicacy in detail.”
“Detail, yes,” Stacey muttered. “I—” He, too, shook his head, while his friend gazed at him with a calm clear smile. “Lack of vulgarity is the curse of more places than the Beaux Arts,” Stacey concluded suddenly. “There’s a brand-new thought for you—brand-new so far as I’m concerned. Make what you can of it, Phil.”
Philip Blair laughed. “Sounds interesting,” he said. “I’ll have to think it over. Anyhow, you needn’t worry about me. I manage to scrape enough together to live and keep Catherine and the boys going.”
“Where are the kiddies?”
“Out for a walk with her. They’ll be in soon.”