There will be so very wonderfully much for her to see, and I believe
she'll enjoy it. One of Lorraine's younger sisters is coming to be with
us, perhaps, for a while in Switzerland--and the Elliots--animal
sculptors. You remember them, don't you, and Arlington--studying
decorative design that winter when you were in New York? They'll be
abroad this summer. I believe we'll all have a very charming, care-free
time walking and sketching and working--a time really so much more
charming for a lovely and sensible young woman than sitting in a
talking town subject to the incursions of a lover she doesn't truly
like." He stopped a moment before he added, sincerely: "Then--it isn't
simply for her that this way would be better, mother, but for me, for
every one."
"For you and for every one?" I managed to make myself ask with
tranquillity.
"Yes. Why wouldn't this relieve immensely all the sufferers from my
commercial career at the factory? Don't you think that's somewhat
unjust, not simply to Maria's and Tom's requirements for the family
standing and fortunes"--he laughed a moment--"but to father's need
there of a right-hand business man?" That was his way of putting it.
"For a long time," he pursued, more earnestly than I've ever heard him
speak before in his life, "I've been planning, mother, to go away to
study and to sketch.
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