Mrs. Bogardus's face wore its most unobservant expression. “I don't agree with Paul,” she said. “I wish in some ways he were more like other young men—exercise, for instance. It's a pity for young men not to love activity and leadership. Besides, it's the fashion. A young man might as well be out of the world as out of the fashion. Blood is a strange thing,” she mused.
The colonel looked at her curiously. In a woman so unfrank, her occasional bursts of frankness were surprising and, as he thought, not altogether complimentary. It was as if she felt herself so far removed from his conception of her that she might say anything she pleased, sure of his miscomprehension.
“He is not lazy intellectually,” said the colonel, aiming to comfort her.
“I did not say he was lazy—only he won't do things except to what he calls some 'purpose.' At his age amusement ought to be purpose enough. He ought to take his pleasures seriously—this hunting-trip, for instance. I believe, on the very least encouragement, he would give it all up!”
“You mustn't let him do that,” said the colonel, warming. “All that country above Yankee Fork, for a hundred miles, after you've gone fifty north from Bonanza, is practically virgin forest. Wonderful flora and fauna! It's late for the weeds and things, but if Paul wants game trophies for your country-house, he can load a pack-train.”
Mrs. Bogardus continued to be amused, in a quiet way. “He calls them relics of barbarism! He would as soon festoon his walls with scalps, as decorate them with the heads of beautiful animals,—nearer the Creator's design than most men, he would say.”
“He's right there! But that doesn't change the distinction between men and animals. He is your son, madam—and he's going to be mine. But, fine boy as he is, I call him a crank of the first water.”
“You'll find him quite good to Moya,” Mrs. Bogardus remarked dispassionately. “And he's not quite twenty-four.”
“Very true. Well, I should send him into the woods for the sake of getting a little sense into him, of an every-day sort. He 'll take in sanity with every breath.”
“And you don't think it's too late in the season for them to go out?”