“She has had great success in the—the—er—pictures.”
“She's a painter—an illustrator?”
“No, she—well—you know, the moving pictures have become very important; they're the fifth largest industry in the world, I believe, and—”
The silence of the parents was deafening. Their eyes rolled together and clashed, as it were, like cannon-balls meeting. Dyckman senior dropped back into his chair and whistled “Whew!” Then he laughed a little:
“Well, I'm sure we should be proud of our alliance with the fifth largest industry. The Dyckmans are coming up in the world.”
“Hush!” said Mrs. Dyckman. She was thinking of the laugh that rival mothers would have on her. She was thinking of the bitterness of her other children, of her daughter who was a duchess in England, and of the squirming of her relatives-in-law. But she was too fond of her boy to mention her dreads. She passed on to the next topic.
“Where are you living?”
“Nowhere yet,” Jim confessed. “We just got in from our—er—honeymoon this morning. We haven't decided what to do.”
Then Mrs. Dyckman took one of those heroic steps she was capable of.
“You'd better bring her here.”