"Two thousand dollars!" exclaimed Martine, to whom figures usually did not mean much. "That is a large sum! Why, it would put a boy through college."
She was thinking of Balfour Airton, and all that this amount of money would do for him.
"Mrs. Blair," continued Martine's mother, "calls Lucian very moderate in his college expenses. He stands well in his classes, too. She says that Philip spent three times as much."
"And he had to leave Harvard without a degree!"
"He has made it up since, and he is doing splendidly in business."
"Edith says it's Pamela's influence that has done so much for him."
"He was lucky enough to find a girl like her to marry him."
"She certainly is a superior woman—even if she is country-born and a college graduate, as Mrs. Blair would say," responded Martine, smiling. "If only they lived nearer, I should spend half my time with cousin Pamela—if she'd let me, but Lincoln seems far away in the winter. That's one thing we'd gain from Lucian's new car; those out-of-town places would seem close at hand."
Lucian, when Martine spoke to him about his car, admitted that he had ordered it, and he tried to laugh away her concern over family affairs. But his efforts in this direction were not really successful, and he saw that his sister was still troubled in spite of his argument that, if things were really going badly, he would have heard more from his father.
"He'd be the last one to wish me to countermand the order. Why, every fellow in our set has a new machine this spring. I thought I was doing something to send my order in so early, though of course if worse comes to worse, I can get rid of it easily enough. Mine is to be ready in June, and I know a fellow who would take it off my hands gladly enough, as he can't get his until August. I'm going to pray, however, that things won't come to that pass."