“Mother, that was Margot!”  
Mrs. Wadislaw heard but did not comprehend what Adrian was saying. She was flushed and panting from her rush after the retreating train and her nerves were excited.
 
“I’ll never, never—run—for any car—in this world, again!” she . “It’s dangerous, and—so—so uncomfortable. My heart——”
 
“Poor mother! I’m sorry. I’ll get you some water.”
 
The young fellow was excited himself but on quite a different matter; yet he knew that nothing could be done for the present and that the disturbed lady would take no interest in anything until her own was calmed.
 
“No, no. Don’t you leave me. Touch [Pg 273]the button. Let the porter attend—I—I am so shaken. I’ll never, never do it again.”
 
He obeyed her and sat down in the easy-chair beside her. She had been compelled to run else they had been left behind, and she had been hurried from the platform of that last car through the long train to their own reserved seats in the drawing-room car.
 
“It was foolish; doubly so, because trains are so frequent. There was no need for haste, anyway, was there?”
 
“Only this need: that when anybody accepts a dinner invitation one should never keep a hostess waiting.”
 
“But when the hostess is only your own sister, and daughter?”
 
“One should be most in one’s own family. Oh, yes. It is no laughing matter, my son, and since you have come home and your common sense, you must regard all these seeming trifles. Half the disagreements and of life are due to the fact that even well-bred people [Pg 274]treat their own households with a rudeness they would not dare show strangers. Now that you have given up your careless habits I shall take care to remind you of all these details, and expect to see you a finished society man within a twelvemonth.”
 
“No, indeed!”
 
“Adrian! How can you trifle so? Now when you’ve so lately been restored to me?”
 
“Dearest mother, I am not . I should be, though, if I meant to shine nowhere else than at a fashionable dinner-table. There, don’t look worried. I’ll try not to disgrace you, yet—— Well, I’ve learned a higher view of life than that. But can you hear me now? That was Margot—woodland Margot—who saved my life!”
 
“Nonsense. It couldn’t be.”
 
“It surely was; and I’m going to ask you to excuse me from this one visit so that I can go back and find her.”
 
“Find her? If it were she, and I’m positive you are mistaken, of course she is not in [Pg 275]the city alone. Her uncle must be with her, and your sister will be deeply hurt if you fail her this first time. At a dinner, you know, there are a certain and limited number of guests. The failure of one leaves his or her partner in an awkward position. You must keep your engagement, even if—— But, Adrian?”
 
“Yes, mother.”
 
“You must not exaggerate your obligations to those people. They did for you only what anybody would do for a man lost in the woods. By their own admission you were worth a great deal to that farmer. Else he never would have parted with eighty dollars, as he did. I shall always prize the gold piece you brought me; indeed, I mean to have it set in a pin and wear it. But this Maine farmer, or lumberman, or whatever he is, just drop him out of mind. His very name is objectionable to me, and you must never mention it before your father. Years ago there was a—well, something unpleasant with [Pg 276]some people; and, please oblige me by—by not being disagreeable now. After all my anxiety while you were gone and about your father’s health, I think—I really——”
 
Adrian slipped his arm across the back of the lady’s chair and smiled upon her, lovingly. He was trying his utmost to make up to her and all his family for whatever they had suffered because of his former “misdeeds.” He had come home full of high resolves and had had his immediately tested by his father’s demanding that:
 
“If you are in earnest, if you intend to do a son’s part by us, go back into the bank and learn a good business. This ‘art’ you talk about, what is it? But the shifty resource of a lot of idle fellows. Get down to business. Dollars are what count, in this world. Put yourself in a place where you can make them, and while I am alive to aid you.”
 
Adrian’s whole nature rebelled against this command, yet he had obeyed it. And he [Pg 277]had inwardly resolved that, outside the duties of his clerkship, his time was his own and should be to his beloved painting.
 
“After all, some of the world’s finest pictures have been done by those whose leisure was . If it’s in me it will have to come out. Some time, in some way, I’ll live my own life in spite of all.”
 
It had hurt him, too, a little that his people so discouraged all history of his wanderings.
 
All o............