One of the ladies said that you
always thought of him as having spoken French after it was over, and
accused herself of wrong in not being able to feel afraid of him. None of
the ladies was afraid of him, though they could not believe that he was
really so deferential to their work as he seemed; and they knew, when he
would not criticise Mr. Harrington's work, that he was just acting from
principle.
They may or may not have known the deference with which he treated Alma's
work; but the girl herself felt that his abrupt, impersonal comment
recognized her as a real sister in art. He told her she ought to come to
New York, and draw in the League, or get into some painter's private
class; and it was the sense of duty thus appealed to which finally
resulted in the hazardous experiment she and her mother were now making.
There were no logical breaks in the chain of their reasoning from past
success with boarders in St. Barnaby to future success with boarders in
New York. Of course the outlay was much greater. The rent of the
furnished house they had taken was such that if they failed their
experiment would be little less than ruinous.
But they were not going to fail; that was what Alma contended, with a
hardy courage that her mother sometimes felt almost invited failure, if
it did not deserve it.
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