"Shall I go away?" asked Owen.
Mrs. Bransby quickly held out one hand entreatingly, while she dried her eyes with the other. "Please stay!" she said. "And please light your cigarette! And please draw your chair near the fire, and make yourself as comfortable—or as little uncomfortable—as you can! Forgive me. I do not often break down in this way; do I, Martin?"
"No," answered Martin, moving the lamp so as to throw his mother's tear-stained face into shadow, and then squeezing his own chair into the corner beside hers, "no; you were cheerful enough with Bucher. Well, of course one had either to take Bucher from the ludicrous side, or else shoot him through the head, and have done with him!"
"I see," said Owen, nodding, and not sorry to hide his own emotion under cover of a joke. "And Mrs. Bransby was unable to make up her mind to justifiably homicide him?"
"Yes. He was a beast, though, and no mistake! Phœbe was in such a rage with him once, that she threatened to throw a hot batter-pudding at his head. I'm sorry now she didn't," added Martin, with pensive regret.
Then they talked quietly. Mrs. Bransby, with womanly tact, led Owen to speak about himself and his prospects. There was little to tell in the way of incident. He had been working steadily, and did not dislike his work. And he had been well contented with his treatment by Mr. Bragg. Mr. Bragg had made him an offer to send him, in the spring, to Buenos Ayres. It might be an opening to fortune.
"I suppose you will go? Of course, you will go!" said Mrs. Bransby.
She could not help her voice and her face betraying some disappointment. They did not, however, betray all she felt; for the prospect of Owen's going away again so soon sent a desolate chill to her heart. Owen looked at her quickly, and then as quickly looked away and tossed the end of his cigarette into the fire, before lighting another.
"I don't know," he answered, bending down over the flame; "it will require some consideration. I believe the alternative is open to me of remaining in Mr. Bragg's employment in England. Anyway, there is time enough before I need decide—several months, I hope."
Mrs. Bransby breathed a low sigh of relief; then she said, in a perceptibly more cheerful tone, "It seems so odd to think of you writing business letters, and making up accounts, and being altogether turned into a—a——"