His face, on the instant, was alight with happiness. “Now, I’m glad to have you say that, Maisie, because I painted that picture.”
“No!”
“Yes.”
“But you never told us——”
“My dear Maisie, you must never breathe a word of this to anybody. If the world of business had discovered ten years ago that I would rather dabble in paint and oil than figure interest, it would not now be regarding me as a capable, conservative business man. I would be that crazy artist fellow, Pritchard.”
She walked to a point where the best view of the picture was obtainable and studied it thoughtfully for several minutes.
“It’s very beautiful and the colors are quite natural, I think,” was her comment. “What do you say it is worth, Dan?”
“Oh, about a million dollars in satisfaction over a good job accomplished, and fifty or a hundred dollars in the average art shop.”
Maisie returned to her seat. “Well,” she declared with an emphasis and note of finality in her tone that stamped her as a young woman of initiative and decision, “if I were as rich as you, Dan Pritchard, I’d continue to be a square peg in a round hole just long enough to send that picture home and then walk out of this office forever. How old are you?”
“Thirty-four, in point of years, but at least a hundred viewed from any other angle.”