"My son——" she began.
But he waved her into silence with a small, roughcast looking hand.
"No good sayin' he's out of town, ma'am, or even spendin' the day on the river, 'cos he ain't."
Mrs. Walbridge looked at him, a slow wave of understanding creeping to her brain.
"I wasn't going to tell you that my son is out, or away," she returned quietly. "He's upstairs. He's extremely sorry, but he will not be able to pay you your—your little account until next week."
The man stared at her in honest surprise, and then his red face melted into rather pleasant curves of irrepressible laughter.
"Well, I'll be—I'll be blowed!" he cried, slapping his knee. "Did he send you down to tell me that? My governor will laugh at that."
They talked, this ill-assorted pair, for about half an hour, and then the man left the house very quietly, bowing at the door with real respect to the lady who had so amused him. He had heard of Violet Walbridge all his life, and vaguely remembered having read "Queenie's Promise" when he was about sixteen, and had the mumps, and to think that she should be like this! Very much "blowed" and inclined to being damned, as he told his wife later, he disappeared out of Mrs. Walbridge's life.
She went upstairs, and found Paul walking up and down the room, smoking cigarettes furiously, his neglected pipe on the mantelpiece.