"Annoyed?" For a moment she smiled. "Well, I should hardly call it 'annoyed.'" Suddenly she made a gesture with her hand, as if to say, stop all this nonsense! "Blair," she said, "I'm not going to go into this business of your marriage at all. It's done." Blair drew a breath of astonished relief. "You've not only done a wicked thing, which is bad; you've done a fool thing, which is worse. I have some sort of patience with a knave, but a fool--'annoys' me, as you express it. You've married a girl who loves another man. You may or may not repent your wickedness--you and I have different ideas on such subjects; but you'll certainly repent your foolishness. When you are eaten up with jealousy of David, you'll wish you had behaved decently. I know what I'm talking about"--she paused, looking down at her fingers picking nervously at the back of the chair; "I've been jealous," she said in a low voice. Then, with a quick breath: "However, wicked or foolish, or both, it's _done_, and I'm not going to waste my time talking about it." "You're very kind," he said; he was so bewildered by this unexpected mildness that he could not think what to say next. "I very much appreciate your overlooking my not telling you about it before I did it. The--the fact was," he began to stammer; her face was not reassuring; "the fact was, it was all so hurried, I--" But she was not listening. "You say you mean to go to Europe; how?" "How?" he repeated. "I don't know just what you mean. Of course I shall be sorry to leave the Works, but under the circumstances--" "It costs money to go to Europe. Have you got any?" "My salary--" "How can you have a salary when you don't do any work?" Blair was silent; then he said, frowning, something about his mother's always having been so kind-- "Kind?" she broke in, "you call it kind? Well, Blair, I am going to be kind now--another way. So far as I'm concerned, you'll not have one dollar that you don't earn." He looked perfectly uncomprehending. "I've done being 'kind,' in the way that's ruined you, and made you a useless fool. I'm going to try another sort of kindness. You can work, my son, or you can starve." Her face quivered as she spoke. "What do you mean?" Blair said, quietly; his embarrassment fell from him like a slipping cloak; he was suddenly and ruthlessly a man.