"Quit!" James Mitchell stared as his wife had stared. "Quit! What for?"
"Because John Lowell is dishonest and I won't work for a dishonest firm."
"How many firms do you suppose are honest? You haven't risen to the management of a firm yet."
"Nor have I sunk to conniving with a thief, either."
James Mitchell opened his lips and then, suddenly and unexpectedly, leaned back. He looked shrunken and grayer, and he stared as if he saw something unseen by the others.
"I've had—the same job—for—thirty—years," he said slowly. "Thirty—years—at the same desk."
Anne softened.
"You ought to have quit long ago. They've used you because you let them. You could have done better. You could do better now. Do you want to quit? I'll get another place to-morrow and stake the house till you get a job."
"No, no, I don't want to quit. No." He seemed fleeing before the suggestion. The strangeness of the new road terrified him and he scuttled back to the familiar. "Used me? Of course they've used me. A man with a family has to get used to being used. A married man has to put up with things. Where would you kids have been if I'd have been getting on my ear all the time you were little?"
"Papa has been faithful," Hilda began, but the sudden tears that filled Anne's eyes astonished her to silence.