"Something seriously off with the poor little nut," he thought. "Any boy likes to look at pictures." So he left him in peace and let him stare apathetically from the car window all the way to Boston, or doze in his corner. Philip wired Diana just before they took the train, and she ordered luncheon to be served in her rooms. She wished very much that some kind turn of Fortune's wheel would call her mother forth to the shops that morning, but by reason of the fragments Mrs. Wilbur overheard passing between her child and Mrs. Lowell or the lawyer, her curiosity as to this waif who might be going to carry on the Loring fortunes became sufficiently vivid to determine her to remain where she could oversee all that her daughter did. "Who did you say is bringing the boy on?" she asked Diana that morning. "His name is Barrison." "You wired him to do this?" "Yes, Mamma." "How could you ask it? Is he a servant?" "No, Mamma, he is a professional singer taking his vacation at the island." Mrs. Wilbur looked at the girl closely. "You must have become rather friendly with him to ask such a favor?" Mrs. Lowell glanced up from a glove she was mending. "Everybody is friendly at the island, Mrs. Wilbur. It is one of the assets of the simple life. As one of the men at the Inn said: 'Every time you go out the door, you wade up to your knees in the milk of human kindness.'" Mrs. Wilbur regarded her coldly. "An inexperienced schoolgirl cannot discriminate," she said. "I felt all the time that Diana should not go there." Her dominating tone was significant of the relation she, contrary to the experience of most American mothers, had succeeded in retaining with her daughter. The average American girl of Diana's age would have had no difficulty in telling her mother that the expected boy would be embarrassed by the presence of a stranger and requesting her, more or less agreeably, to return to her apartments. Not so Diana. Her mother plied her now with additional questions about Herbert Loring's heir. "For mercy's sake," said Mrs. Wilbur at last, "I should judge from what you say that the boy isn't far off melancholia." Mrs. Lowell sighed unconsciously. Mrs. Wilbur heard her, but did not understand the reason for it. "Well, don't ask me to lunch with him. I am sure he would make me nervous," added the lady. "I think it quite likely he would, Mamma," said her daughter dutifully, one of her problems disappearing. "There certainly will be an interesting evolution observable in him very soon, but just at first his limitations might annoy you." "Well, I'll just stay long enough to look at him and then I will go," returned Mrs. Wilbur. CHAPTER XVI THE NEW CLIENT She used her lorgnette upon the pair of guests when they were ushered in, but her interest in the silent boy was quickly transferred to the tall, attractive blond man with the flashing smile and sparkling eyes, who greeted her daughter with such accustomed friendliness.