For an interval of seconds that seemed numerable in minutes he looked at Matt without speaking, leaning on his stick, his saturnine face growing momently darker.
“Davie’s son, I suppose,” he said, slowly, at last.
“H’m! I might have seen it. So you have come to England, after all?”
“Yes, sir. But not till I had the money for my studies.”
Matthew Strang’s face lightened a little. “Sit down! Sit down! No need to stand,” he said, with uneasy graciousness, placing his disengaged hand on Matt’s shoulder. “And how are all your folks?”
“Oh, they’re pretty spry, thank you,” said Matt, resuming his chair.
“Let me see--your mother married again, didn’t she?”
“It’s about the same,” said Matt, vaguely.
“Ha!” said Mr. Strang, with an all-comprehending air.
He allowed Madame to divest him lovingly of his cloak. Then he said: “You’re settled in London, then?”
“Humph! You’re not like your father. He could never stay in one place. Well, well, I’m sure I wish you success, but you know it’s not an easy line you’ve gone into.”
“I was much obliged to you, sir, for your advice,” said Matt, sincerely.
But the elder man, suspecting sarcasm, replied half defiantly: “There’s not one man in a thousand that makes his bread-and-butter by it. Why, I’ve just bought a picture from an A.R.A. for fifty pounds; it’s worth treble. You would have done better at your farm--or was it a saw-mill?”
“It isn’t the money I was thinking of, sir; it’s the joy of painting.”
“Hum! I talked like that once.” Matthew Strang sat down rather peevishly and crossed his legs.
“And you talk like that now, too,” said Madame, with gentle reproach. “Not for yourself,” she corrected, hastily, as his eyebrows took their interrogative altitude. “But you know you don’t care if Herbert doesn’t make money for years, so long as he makes a reputation eventually.”
“Herbert is in a different position. He doesn’t need to earn anything.”
“Nor does your nephew,” said Madame. “He has ample resources, he tells me.”
Matt blushed at Madame’s unconscious magnification of his curt statement on the point, but he did not think it worth while contradicting her. Matthew uncrossed his legs restlessly. “I suppose your mother married a well-to-do man?”
“Yes, pretty well-to-do,” Matt stammered.
