He could not recollect that she had pronounced his name before; he thought it came very winningly from her lips. “No, I'm not a painter. I'm not anything.” He hesitated; then he added recklessly, “I'm a farmer.”
“A farmer?” Lydia looked incredulous, but grave.
“Yes; I'm a horny-handed son of the soil. I'm a cattle-farmer; I'm a sheep-farmer; I don't know which. One day I'm the one, and the next day I'm the other.” Lydia looked mystified, and Staniford continued: “I mean that I have no profession, and that sometimes I think of going into farming, out West.”
“Yes?” said Lydia.
“How should I like it? Give me an opinion, Miss Blood.”
“Oh, I don't know,” answered the girl.
“You would never have dreamt that I was a farmer, would you?”
“No, I shouldn't,” said Lydia, honestly. “It's very hard work.”
“And I don't look fond of hard work?”
“I didn't say that.”