"Why not come up to the flat; we've some beer, and Eleanor's been making some fudge. It's more comfortable than that noisy café."
"Very well, then," he said stiffly. "I'll leave you at your door."
"Now, Walter—don't be a fool. What are you so sour about to-night? You haven't opened your mouth for six blocks."
"You know very well that I can't talk with "Saph" on the job—she hates me. I'd like to talk this over with you."
"All right," she said, shaking his arm to cheer him up. "But don't be quite so grumpy, just because I called you a sentimentalist."
Over the marble-topped table in the café, he told her that a letter had come inviting him to join an expedition, organized by the French Government, to excavate some Haktite ruins in Persia. From the point of view of an Assyriologist it was a flattering offer; they had selected him as the most eminent American in that department. But it would be a three or four years' undertaking in one of the most inaccessible corners of the globe. They would probably get mail no oftener than two or three times a year. And after all he was more interested in the thoughts of live men than in mummies and cuneiform inscriptions. It would stop his work on philosophy.
"In fact, Mabel," he ended, "there is only one thing that makes me think of accepting. I can't stand this. I don't want to bring up the forbidden subject. But I'm tired—worn out—with hiding it. If I stay here in New York, I'm sure to—bore you."
He tried to smile lightly, but it was not much better than the smile with which we ask the dentist if it is going to hurt. Mabel dug about in her café parfait for a moment without replying. She understood all the things he had not said. At last she did the unselfish, the kindly thing, which, if she had been a man, she would have done long before. She sent him away.
"It looks to me like a great opportunity. It isn't only an honor for past achievements, but a chance for new and greater ones. Sometimes I poke fun at your Synthetic Philosophy, but seriously I don't think it is as big a thing as your Assyriology. Whether you like it or not the Fates have given you a talent for that. Your wanting to do something else—write philosophy—always seems to me like a great violinist who wants to be a jockey or chauffeur. You're really at the very top as an Assyriologist. It's not only me—but most of your friends—think you have more talent for that. I think you'd best accept it."
Longman swallowed his medicine like a man. A few minutes later he left Mabel at her door.