“You are not all alike, surely; so that I don’t think I understand your question. We have no one like your brother—I may go so far as that.”
“You have probably more persons like his wife,” said Miss Ambient, smiling.
“I can tell you that better when you have told me about her point of view.”
“Oh, yes—oh, yes. Well, she does n’t like his ideas. She doesn’t like them for the child. She thinks them undesirable.”
Being quite fresh from the contemplation of some of Mark Ambient’s arcana, I was particularly in a position to appreciate this announcement. But the effect of it was to make me, after staring a moment, burst into laughter, which I instantly checked when I remembered that there was a sick child above.
“What has that infant to do with ideas?” I asked “Surely, he can’t tell one from another. Has he read his father’s novels?”
“He’s very precocious and very sensitive, and his mother thinks she can’t begin to guard him too early.” Miss Ambient’s head drooped a little to one side, and her eyes fixed themselves on futurity. Then suddenly there was a strange alteration in her face; she gave a smile that was more joyless than her gravity—a conscious, insincere smile, and added, “When one has children, it’s a great responsibility—what one writes.”
“Children are terrible critics,” I answered. “I am rather glad I have n’t got any.”
“Do you also write then? And in the same style as my brother? And do you like that style? And do people appreciate it in America? I don’t write, but I think I feel.” To these and various other inquiries and remarks the young lady treated me, till we heard her brother’s step in the hall again, and Mark Ambient reappeared. He looked flushed and serious, and I supposed that he had seen something to alarm him in the condition of his child. His sister apparently had another idea; she gazed at him a moment as if he were a burning ship on the horizon, and simply murmured, “Poor old Mark!”
“I hope you are not anxious,” I said.