"But that's just it! I don't intend to marry—I am going to devote my whole life to my work."
Quin, having but recently recovered from the fear that she was contemplating matrimony, now underwent a similar torture at her avowal that she was not. The second possibility was only a shade less appalling than the first.
"The trouble is," she went on very confidentially, "I am not interested in anything in the world but my art."
"Oh, come now, Miss Eleanor!" Quin rallied her. "You know you were interested in the work out at the camp."
"That's true. I except that."
"And you can't say you haven't been interested in our selling this farm, and getting Mr. and Mrs. Ranny fixed up, and all that."
"Of course I've been interested in that; it's been no end of fun."
"And then," Quin pursued his point quite brazenly, "there's me. I hope you are a little bit interested in me?"
She tried to take it lightly. "Interested in you? Why, of course I am. We all are. Uncle Ranny was saying only this morning——"
"I don't care a hang what he said. It's you I'm talking about. Do you like me any better than you did in the spring?"