"Oh, legal, yes," her son agreed significantly; the thin ice of politeness was beginning to crack. It was the old situation over again; he was repelled by unloveliness; this time it was the unloveliness of shrewdness. For a moment his disgust made him quite natural. "It is _legal_ enough, I suppose," he said coldly. Mrs. Maitland did not lift her head, but with her eyes fixed on her needles, she suddenly stopped knitting. Nannie quivered. "Mamma," she burst in, "Blair wanted to tell you about something very beautiful that he has found, and--" Her brother pinched her, and her voice trailed into silence. "Found something beautiful? I'd like to hear of his finding something useful!" The ice cracked a little more. "As for your mother's honesty, Blair, if you had waited a minute, I'd have told you that as soon as I found the idea was practical I handed it over to Kraas. _I'm_ damn-fool honest, I suppose." But this time she did not laugh at her joke. Blair was instant with apologies; he had not meant--he had not intended--"Of course you would do the square thing," he declared. "But you thought I wouldn't," she said. And while he was making polite exclamations, she changed the subject for something safer. She still tried to entertain him, but now she spoke wearily. "What do you suppose I read in the paper to-night? Some man in New York--named Maitland, curiously enough; 'picked up' an old master--that's how the paper put it; for $5,000. It appears it was considered 'cheap'! It was 14x18 inches. _Inches_, mind you, not feet! Well, Mr. Doestick's friends are not all dead yet. Sorry anybody of our name should do such a thing." Nannie turned white enough to faint. "Allow me to say," said Blair, tensely, "that an 'old master' might be cheap at five times that price!" "I wouldn't give five thousand dollars for the greatest picture that was ever painted," his mother announced. Then, without an instant's warning, her face puckered into a furious sneeze. "God bless us!" she said, and blew her nose loudly. Blair jumped. "_I_ would give all I have in the world!" he said. "Well," his mother said, ramming her grimy handkerchief into her pocket, "if it cost all _you_ have in the world, it would certainly be cheap; for, so far as I know, you haven't anything." Alas! the ice had given way entirely. Blair pushed Nannie's hand from his arm, and getting up, walked over to the marble-topped centre-table; he stood there slowly turning over the pages of _The Poetesses of America_, in rigid determination to hold his tongue. Mrs. Maitland's eyebrow began to rise; her fingers tightened on her hurrying needles until the nails were white. Nannie, looking from one to the other, trembled with apprehension. Then she made an excuse to take Blair to the other end of the room. "Come and look at my drawing," she said; and added under her breath: "Don't tell her!"