Mrs Carstairs looked severe. "How absurdly you talk, Jack."
"The truth is usually absurd, mater."
Mrs Bevengton continued to regard him with a critical, calculating eye.
"That's just a start, of course?" she said.
"Well, I hope it's not the finish, Mrs Bevengton."
Mrs Bevengton looked at Bessie, then back again at Jack. He seemed very steady-looking and confident; she had only a vague notion of what he was doing, but had an impression that electrical engineering was a safe sort of thing, displacing the Church as the thing to put the fool of the family into. Still, the Carstairs so far had not "got on."
"I suppose it's a good er—profession, isn't it, Jack?"
Jack looked at his hands which would have compared favourably with a young carpenter's. "Fairly good, I think," he said, "for the right men. About the same as doctoring, only more pleasant—to the young mind at least."
Mrs Carstairs smiled approval.
The doctor's wife was puzzled. He spoke too soberly for a Carstairs—and nineteen. She looked at Mrs Carstairs. "When does Phillip leave?"