"What do you want with her?"
"I want a sitting at once!"
"You keep away from her!" Victor blazed out. "I don't want her sitting
for you. She's mixed up too deeply in your affairs already. Carew
said--"
"I don't care what Carew said--and I don't care whether you approve of
your mother's sitting for me or not. Her controls will decide that
question."
He tramped out and down the stairway, and from the window Victor saw him
whirl away in his automobile. "That man's a scoundrel and a slob," he
said; "a greasy old slob. I will not have my mother sitting for such
people. Can't I head him off somehow?"
With sudden resolution he ran down the stairway and over to the
telephone booth on the corner. He got the butler at once, and was deeply
relieved to find that his mother was out with Mrs. Joyce. "He can't see
her before I do," he concluded, as he hung up the receiver. "I'll go
over there and wait for her to return."
As he neared the house he met Leo coming out with some letters in her
hand, and with the swift resiliency of youth, he asked if he might not
walk with her.
"Certainly," she said; "I want to talk with you about your plans."
"I haven't any plans," he said.
"What have you been doing this morning?"
He hesitated a moment, then answered: "I've been mending that old
table--I suppose you heard about my smashing it?"
"Yes; and it seemed a very childish thing to do."
"If you knew how I hate that business and everything connected with it!"
"I do, and it seems absurd to me. Your mother's life is very wonderful
and very beautiful to me."