Wisbech’s manner became confidential. “It’s a fact that has counted against me now and then. Besides, I think you noticed my accent––it’s distinctly provincial, and not like yours or Derrick’s––as soon as I told you I was a relative of his. You see, I know my station. In fact, I’m almost aggressively proud of it.” He spread out his hands in a forceful fashion. “It’s a useful one.”
He reached out, and, to the girl’s surprise, took up a bowl from the table, and appeared to weigh it in his hands. It was made of the indurated fibre which is frequently to be met with in the Bush ranches.
“This,” he said, “is, I suppose, the kind of thing they are going to turn out at that wood-pulp mill. You have probably observed the thickness of it?”
“I believe it is, though they are going to make paper stock, too.”
“Well,” pursued Wisbech; “it may meet the requirements of the country, but it is a very crude and inartistic production. I may say that it is my business to make enamelled ware. The Wisbech bowls and cups and basins are justly celebrated––light and dainty, and turned out to resemble marble, granite, or the most artistic china. They will withstand any heat you can subject them to, and practically last for ever.”
He broke off for a moment with a chuckle. “I can’t detach myself from my business as some people seem to fancy one ought to do. After all, it is only by marriage that Derrick Nasmyth is my nephew.” His manner became grave again. “I married his mother’s sister––very much against the wishes of the rest of the family. As Derrick has lived some time here, the latter fact will probably not astonish you.”
Laura said nothing, though she understood exactly what he meant. She was becoming more sure that she liked the man, but she realized that she might not have done so had she met him before she came out to Canada, where she had learned to recognize the essential points in character. There were certainly respects in which his manner would once have jarred upon her.
Her expression was reassuring when he turned to her again.
“I was a retail chemist in a little pottery town when I discovered the properties of one or two innocuous fluxes, and how to make a certain leadless glaze,” he said. “Probably you do not know that there were few more unhealthy occupations than the glazing of certain kinds of pottery. I was also fortunate enough to make a good deal of money out of my discovery, and as I extended its use, I eventually started a big enamelling works of my own. After that I married; but the Nasmyths never quite forgave me my little idiosyncrasies and some of my views. They dropped me when my wife died. She”––his face softened curiously––“was in many ways very different from the rest of them.”