"Yes; I'm awfully sorry," he said with charming courtesy, "but I feel I ought to brush up on one or two subjects, and I can do it better abroad than here. I'm going to paint a little, too. I'll be very busy all summer."
"Why don't you paint our new foundry?" said Mrs. Maitland. She laughed with successful cheerfulness; Blair liked jokes, and this, she thought, complacently, was a joke. "Well, I shall manage to keep busy, too!" she said.
"I suppose so," Blair agreed.
He was lounging on the arm of Nannie's chair, and felt his sleeve plucked softly. "Now," said Nannie.
But Blair was not ready. "You are always busy," he said; "I wish I had your habit of industry."
Mrs. Maitland's smile faded. "I wish you had."
"Oh, well, you've got industry enough for this family," Blair declared.
But the flattery did not penetrate.
"Too much, maybe," she said grimly; then remembered, and began to "entertain" again: "I had a compliment to-day."
Blair, with ardent interest, said, "Really?"
"That man Dolliver in our office—you remember Dolliver?" Blair nodded. "He happened to say he never knew such an honest man as old Henry B. Knight. Remember old Mr. Knight?" She paused, her eyes narrowed into a laugh. "He married Molly Wharton. I always called her 'goose Molly.' She used to make eyes at your father; but she couldn't get him—though she tried to hard enough, by telling him, so I heard, that the 'only feminine thing about me was my petticoats.' A very coarse remark, in my judgment; and as for being feminine,—when you were born, I thought of inviting her to come and look at you so she could see what a baby was like! She never had any children. Well, old Knight was elder of the Second Church. Remember?"