The young man coughed. The smoke of his pipe had lost its way, and seemed trying for an outlet down his throat. "Mrs Naylor and her daughters are here, I understand?" he said at last.
"Yes."
There was a lengthened silence. "Yes" is not an answer to which the next observation can readily be attached. The questioner removed his pipe, and began nervously to examine what could be making it draw so badly; while the other watched him in silent amusement, tempered with a touch of good-natured pity.
"I wonder," Blount said at last, digging the charge carefully out of his pipe, and so making it unnecessary to raise his eyes to the other's face,--"I wonder what they will say to see me here?"
"Difficult to imagine," came the answer from the thickest of a bank of smoke.
"I fear I am not a favourite with Mrs Naylor."
"She told you not to call any more, I believe? That was pretty plain."
"Was it not too bad of her? What can she have against me? She has known me ever since I came to the country, and she used to be like a mother to me."
"That was imprudent. Now she sees it, I suppose. A mother of girls may become mother-in-law to some young fellow one day, and Mrs Naylor may feel that she ought to reserve herself for that. When girls leave school, you see, circumstances alter."
"I am sure I showed no unwillingness to take her for my mother-in-law."