" And he pushed the bundle of
papers off the table.
"Something has depressed you." She was leaning her elbow upon the table and
her chin upon her hand and was looking at him wistfully. "I wouldn't have
you any different. You must follow the law of your nature. You must work at
your ideal of being useful and influential in the world. You would not be
satisfied to take my hand and trudge off with me through Arcadia to pick
flowers and weave them into crowns for me. Nor should I," she laughed, "or
I try to think I shouldn't."
"Let us go abroad for two months," he said. "I am tired, so tired. I am so
weary of all these others, men and things."
"Can you spare the time?"
"I"--he corrected himself--"we have earned a vacation. It will be for me
the first real vacation since I left Yale--thirteen years ago. I am growing
narrow and stale. Let us get away and forget. Shall we?"
"The sooner the better--if this is not a passing mood. What has depressed
you?" she persisted.
"What seems to be a piece of very good luck." He laughed almost sneeringly.
"They have given me a share in the paper, twenty thousand in stock--which
means a fixed income of five thousand a year so long as the paper pays what
it does now--twenty-five per cent. And they offer me twenty thousand more
at par to be paid for within two years.
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