"Well, not seriously," she said dryly. And he felt the color rise in his face. That he was frightfully ill at ease was obvious in the elaborate carelessness with which he began to inquire about the Works. But her only answer to his meaningless questions was silence. Blair was conscious that he was breathing quickly, and that made him angry. "Why _am_ I such an ass?" he asked himself; then said, with studied lightness, that he was afraid he would have to absent himself from business for still a little longer, as he was going abroad. Fortunately--here the old sarcastic politeness broke into his really serious purpose to be respectful; fortunately he was so unimportant that his absence didn't really matter. "You _are_ the Works, you know, Mother." "You are certainly unimportant," she agreed. He noticed she had not taken up her knitting, though a ball of pink worsted and a half-finished baby sock lay on the bureau near her; this unwonted quiet of her hands, together with the extraordinary solemnity of her face, gave him a sense of uneasy astonishment. He would almost have welcomed one of those brutal outbursts which set his teeth on edge by their very ugliness. He did not know how to treat this new dignity. "I would like to tell you just what happened," he began, with a seriousness that matched her own. "Elizabeth had made up her mind not to marry David Richie. They had had some falling out, I believe. I never asked what; of course that wasn't my business. Well, I had been in love with her for months; but I didn't suppose I had a ghost of a chance; of course I wouldn't have dreamed of trying to--to take her from him. But when she broke with him, why, I felt that I had a--a right, you know." His mother was silent, but she struck the back of her chair softly with her closed fist: her eyebrow began to lift ominously. "Well; we thought--I mean I thought; that the easiest way all round was to get married at once. Not discuss it, you know, with people; but just--well, in point of fact, I persuaded her to run off with me!" He tried to laugh, but his mother's face was rigid. She was looking at him closely, but she said nothing. By this time her continued silence had made him so nervous that he went through his explanation again from beginning to end. Still she did not speak. "You see, Mother," he said, reddening with the discomfort of the moment, "you see it was best to do it quickly? Elizabeth's engagement being broken, there was no reason to wait. But I do regret that I could not have told you first. I fear you felt--annoyed."