Except to look pretty, Miss Helen Hayes had done nothing to produce this impression, for she had contradicted Mr. Dilworth up and down about Ned.
"He has genius, you know."
"You mean his fiddle?" Tom said, incredulously.
"I mean his music. We'll hear of him one of these days."
"I don't care much whether we ever hear from his music," he said, "but I wish I could hear that he was applying himself to business."
"Business!" cried Helen Hayes. "What is business compared to Art?"
Thomas looked over at Mr. Hayes in astonishment, for in those days, in Old Chester, this particular sort of talk had not been heard; the older man sneered and changed his cigar from one corner of his mouth to the other. Miss Hayes did not get much sympathy from her family. But she went on with pretty dogmatism:
"You see, in a man like your son—"
"A man! He's only twenty, my dear young lady."
"In a man, sir! like your son—genius is the thing to consider; and you owe it to the world to let genius have its fullest play. Don't bring Pegasus down to plough Old Chester cornfields. Why, it seems to me," said Helen Hayes, "that he ought to be allowed to just soar. We common folk ought to do the ploughing."