"There are many young men in that business who would be glad to go with you," was her reply.
"Hang young men! If I take a typewriter it will be a young woman," I retorted. "Oh, don't glare at me in that frigid way. There are respectable young women enough without letting your thoughts run wild. Uncle Dugald has been trying to get me to resume work on the family genealogy, which I was plodding through when I was knocked out by that confounded illness. I have all of the notes on hand. Supposing I advertise for a young woman of good moral character to assist a literary man, one that is willing to travel. Don't you think I might secure the right sort of person in that way?"
"Good moral character!" she echoed, her lip curling. "And what do you think her character would resemble when she returned with you from your journey?"
I replied that it would be something like that of a vestal virgin, as near as I could prognosticate. And I demanded where she got the notion that I was a menace to the purity of any young creature who might decide to trust herself in my company.
"The idea is too silly to talk of seriously," she answered.
"Oh, I don't know," said I. "The more I think about it, the better I like the thing. Some of these typewriter girls are not bad looking. Many are well educated. A good salary ought to overcome their objections to travel, especially at this season of the year, when New York is under the dominion of the Ice King. I shall put an advertisement in the 'Personal' column of the Herald, next Sunday."
Statia tried to pretend that she thought me simply fooling, but it was evident that she was not as sure on that point as she would like to be. If there was nothing else to be gained by the conversation, I was at least getting even with her to some degree for the disappointment she had caused me a few minutes earlier.
"You will do nothing of the sort," she said. "Come, Don, don't be an idiot. I can hardly find patience to discuss the senseless thing. If you weren't such a reckless boy, I should know you were only joking. You shall not leave the room until you promise to drop this nonsense."
I liked her, in spite of her cruel conduct; yes, I liked her very much; and it did me an immense amount of good to sense the taint of jealousy in her words and manner.
"Statia Barton," I replied, taking a step that brought me to her side, "it all lies with you. Again I ask you to be my wife and go with me on the journey my doctor declares I must take at once. If you refuse to guard and protect me you have no right to say that some one else shall be prevented from doing so."