“H’m! Not so bad. Hundred an’ sixty dollars a week; with Sunday off. Why don’t you stick to that instead of messin’ around with the law?”
“It was the tenth story I’d sent them,” confessed Hawarden, heroically. “And it was the first one they took. That’s the trouble with literature. It—”
“So, as things stand now,” pursued Caleb, “you’ve no real money. No sure prospects. An’ you want to marry Dey Shevlin. You want her to share your nothin’-a-year. Or,” he grated, “maybe you think it’d be nice to live on her cash?”
“I think nothing of the sort!” flared Hawarden, scarlet with anger. “I’ll not stand that sort of talk even from her guardian. I wouldn’t touch a penny of any woman’s money if I were starving! I—”
“That sounds kind of like a book, too,” commented Caleb. “But you mean it. I’m glad you do. I think I kind of like you. So instead of throwin’ you downstairs, I’m goin’ to waste a whole minute talkin’ to you. You’re a nice kid. You come here bristlin’ with book learnin’ an’ idees of honor an’ you make your little speech to the stony hearted guardian an’ stand ready to say ‘God bless you, sir, for them kind words!’ or ‘You’ve busted two young hearts!’ No, you needn’t squirm. It’s so. But you can rub both those remarks off the slate. Neither of ’em’ll be needed. You’ve the good sense to fall in love with the dandiest girl that ever happened. But what have you got to offer her? Besides your valuable self, I mean? You’re askin’ for the greatest thing in all this world. Do you give anything in exchange? Not you. You want her,—her with her pretty ways, an’ clever brain an’ gorgeous little face. An’ you can’t even support her. You can’t even say: ‘I’ve got ten dollars a week of my own. I’ll give it all to her.’ You’ve no money—no prospects. An’ you want her to exchange herself for that. Her that could marry a millionaire if she wanted to.”
“I’m—I’m willing that the engagement should be a long one,” hesitated the boy, battling futilely against the vulgar truth of Caleb’s words. “I wouldn’t ask her to marry me till I was able to support her,—to support her well.”
“An’ in the meantime,” urged Conover, with merciless logic. “In the meantime, she’s to have the pleasure of sittin’ by, eatin’ her heart out, waitin’—waitin’—growin’ older ev’ry year,—losin’ good chances,—bein’ side-tracked at parties an’ so on, because she’s engaged an’ no longer in the marriage market,—waitin’ year after year—maybe till all her prettiness an’ her youth’s gone—just on the chance that you’ll some day be able to support a wife? You don’t mean to be crooked. You’re only just foolish. But look the thing in the eyes an’ tell me: Is it square? Is it an honest bargain you offer? Aren’t you cheatin’ the one girl in the world you ought to do most for?”
“But with such an incentive,” pleaded the boy, “I’d surely make my way quickly. In a year at most! I’d work—I’d work so hard for her!”
Caleb leaned to one side and threw open the window by his desk. With the warm, soft air of Spring rushed in the steam sibilance and clangor of the railway yards.
“Look down there!” ordered Conover, pointing out, “More’n a hundred men in that yard, ain’t there? Dirty-faced men with stooped shoulders an’ soiled clothes. Not a one of ’em that’s got a fam’ly resemblance to Romeo. What are they doin’? Workin’! Every mother’s son of ’em workin’ harder than you or any of your fam’ly ever worked or ever could work. How’d their faces get dirty an’ stoopid an’ their shoulders bent over? By workin’. An’ who are they workin’ for? For themselves? Not them. Each one of ’em’s workin’ for some woman. An’ most of ’em for a bunch of measly kids as well. Workin’ all day an’ ev’ry day, till they drop dead or wear out an’ go to the poorhouse. An’ the women they work for are workin’ too. Workin’ at washboard or scrub-brush to eke out the men-folks’ an’ brats’ livin’. Work! Work! Work! All their lives. But I don’t see any of ’em gatherin’ in front of the footlights an’ singin’ a chorus about how happy they are, or how their hard work has made their wives rich an’ lazy. Are you any better’n they are? Can you work any harder for Desirée than they are workin’ for the slatternly, slab-sided, down-at-heel women at home? Don’t you s’pose every one of those men once planned to make his wife a lady an’ to ‘cons’crate his toil’ to her? Think it over, son; an’ get a better argument than the silly fact that you’re willin’ to do your dooty by workin’ for Desirée. Hell’s full of workers.”