"Well, Frances!" she began briskly, "I have not had time before to attend to you. Are your bags hung in your stateroom?"
"I haven't been down yet," said Mrs. Waldeaux meekly. "We were watching the fog in the sun."
"Fog! Mercy on me! You know you may be ill any minute, and your room not ready! Of course, you did not take the bromides that I sent you a week ago?
"No, Clara."
Miss Vance glanced at her. "Well, just as you please. I've done what I could. Let me look at your itinerary. You will be too ill for me to advise you about it later."
"Oh, we made none!" said George gayly, coming up to his mother's aid. "We are going to be vagabonds, and have no plans. Mother's soul draws us to York Cathedral, and mine to the National Gallery. That is all we know."
"I thought you had given up that whim of being an artist?" said Miss Vance, sharply facing on him.
Young Waldeaux reddened. "Yes, I have given it up. I know as well as you do that I have no talent. I am going to study my profession at Oxford, and earn my bread by it."
"Quite right. You never would earn it by art," she said decisively. "How long do you stay in York, Frances?"
"Oh, a day, or a month—or—years, as we please," said Frances, lazily turning her head away. She wanted to set Clara Vance down in her proper place. Mrs. Waldeaux abhorred cousinly intimates—people who run into your back door to pry into the state of your larder or your income. But Miss Vance, as Frances knew, unfortunately held a key to her back door. She knew of George's wretched daubs, and his insane desire, when he was a boy, to study art. He gave it up years ago. Why should she nag him now about it? By virtue of her relationship she knew, too, all of Mrs. Waldeaux's secrets. It was most unfortunate that she should have chosen to sail on this vessel.