"I don't know that. I have my profession. I have leisure during part of the summer and fall, making studies for pictures—but I take pupils; they pay."
"You must consider the old folk."
"I do. I will visit them occasionally. But art is a mistress, and an imperious one. When one is married one is no longer independent."
"You are married?" asked Mehetabel, with a flush in her cheeks.
"Yes, to my art."
"Oh! to paints and brushes! Tell me true, Iver! Has no girl won your heart whilst you have been from home?"
"I have found many to admire, but my heart is free. I have had no time to think of girls' faces—save as studies. Art is a mistress as jealous as she is exacting."
Mehetabel drew a long breath. There went up a flash of light in her mind, for which she did not attempt to account. "You are free—that is famous, and can take Polly Colpus."
Then she laughed, and Iver laughed.
They laughed long and merrily together.