“Haven’t you?” said her husband. “Well, you soon may.” The girl’s lowered eyelids fluttered, but the prospect of soon hearing something on this theme left Mrs. Mar collected enough to say: “No earthly use to darn that.” “N-no,” agreed the girl. “Lay a piece under. Match the stripe and cut out the fray. There’s some like it in the ottoman.” Hildegarde went and kneeled down before the big deal “store-box.” Its lid, stuffed and neatly covered, made a sightly receptacle for endless oddments. Mrs. Mar, as she clicked her needles and oscillated her entire frame, kept her eye on the place where she was going to dash into Eckermann the instant Hildegarde was settled to her sewing. But true to the sacred principle of doing something while she was waiting, Mrs. Mar thus delayed, saw it to be a timely moment to put Jack Galbraith in his proper place. It was not the sort of thing you could do thoroughly once, and be done with. Like house-cleaning, it required to be seen to periodically. “Well, what’s the _epoche-machende_ news this time?” As her husband made no haste to answer, “He’s always ‘going to break the record,’ that young gentleman! I never knew anybody with so many big words in his mouth.” The stricture was deserved enough to gall Jack’s friend, who moved uneasily in his revolving chair. But he kept his eyes on the map he was drawing and he kept his lips close shut. “I see precious little result so far,” she was beginning again. “The result,” interrupted Mar, “will be judged when he’s finished his life-work, not while he’s still preparing for it.” “Preparing! Bless me, isn’t he old enough to have _done_ something, if he was ever going to?” “If he were going into business, yes. Science is a longer story.” “One excuse is as good as another, I suppose, when a man wants to please himself. It’s like Galbraith to call his fecklessness by a highfalutin name. ‘Science,’ ‘Investigation,’ ‘Anthropology.’ Humph! But it does _sound_ better, I agree, than saying he likes satisfying a low curiosity about savages. It isn’t even as if he wanted to convert them. Not he! Likes them best as they are: filthy and degraded. ‘Philology?’ Tomfoolology!” It was more even than the tranquil Hildegarde could bear. “Hasn’t he done something wonderful about ocean currents, papa? Didn’t you say that was the real reason why he went that last time to—?” “Yes. It was a piece of work that brought him recognition very creditable to so young a student.”