“Why does she think that?”
“Because they let him go away to school. And he spent his vacations canoeing, climbing mountains, and doing all sorts of queer things rather than live with his relations. Then he went to Harvard, and then he went abroad and studied. He’s always studying.”
“Gracious! what makes him do that?”
“Oh, he wants to find out about everything. And he’s doing it. He’s written a book with things in it nobody ever heard of before. Father says it’s a work of genius. Mr. Galbraith was coming here two years ago, when he’d finished the book, only just then—”
“I didn’t think,” Bella interrupted with a sigh, “I didn’t think from his picture he was so awful old.”
“He isn’t. He’s barely twenty-five.”
But Bella shook her head. “If a person’s over twenty he might just as well be a hundred.”
“Yes, ordinary people. But it doesn’t matter how old a genius is. Father’s awfully excited about Mr. Galbraith just now, for he’s been away a year and a half on an arctic expedition and we’re expecting him back next summer. We may be hearing from him any day after the middle of June. Father and I often talk about it when we’re alone together.”
“Why don’t you talk about it when there’s anybody there?”