There was a violent silence. Suddenly Mrs. Maitland brought the flat of her hand furiously down on the table; then, without a word, got on her feet, pulled at the ball of pink worsted which had run behind a chair and caught under the caster; her jerk broke the thread. The next moment the parlor door banged behind her. Nannie burst out crying. Blair opened and closed his lips, speechless with rage. "What--what made her so angry?" Nannie said, catching her breath. "Was it the beetle?" "Don't call it that ridiculous name! I'll have to borrow the $5,000. And where the devil I'll get it I don't know. Nannie, 'goose Molly' wasn't an entire fool, after all!" "Blair!" his sister protested, horrified. But Blair was too angry to be ashamed of himself. He could not see that his mother's anger was only the other side of her love. In Sarah Maitland, not only maternity, but pride, the peculiar pride engendered in her by her immense business--pride and maternity together, demanded such high things of her son! Not finding them, the pain of disappointment broke into violent expression. Indeed, had this charming fellow, handsome, selfish, sweet-hearted, been some other woman's son, she would have been far more patient with him. Her very love made her abominable to him. She was furiously angry when she left him there in Nannie's parlor; all the same he did not have to borrow the $5,000. The next morning Sarah Maitland sent for her superintendent. "Mr. Ferguson," she said--they were in her private office, and the door was shut; "Mr. Ferguson, I think--but I don't know--I think Blair has been making an idiot of himself again. I saw in the paper that somebody called Maitland had been throwing money away on a picture. I don't know what it was, and I don't want to know. It was 14x18 inches; not feet. That was enough for me. Why, Ferguson, those big pictures in my parlor (I bought them when I was going to be married; a woman is sort of foolish then; I wouldn't do such a thing now), those four pictures are 4x6 feet each; and they cost me $400; $100 apiece. But this New York man has paid $5,000 for one picture 14x18 inches! If it was Blair--and it came over me last night, all of a sudden, that it was; he hasn't got any $5,000 to pay for it. I don't want to go into the matter with him; we don't get along on such subjects. But I want you to ask him about it; maybe he'll speak out to you, man fashion. If this 'Maitland' is just a fool of our name so much the better; but if it is Blair, I've got to help him out, I suppose. I want you to settle the thing for me. I--can't." Her voice broke on the last word; she coughed and cleared her throat before she could speak distinctly. "I haven't the time," she said. Robert Ferguson listened, frowning. "You'll give him money to spend in ways you don't approve of?" She nodded sullenly. "I have to." "You don't have to!" he broke out; "for God's sake, Mrs. Maitland, _stop!_" "What do you mean, sir?"