"Humph! 'Fraid I'm not built that way. Do you know why he's got such a bee in his bonnet about—?"
He was going to say, in order to lead up to his announcement, "about Fay, the gardener"; but he couldn't. The words wouldn't come out. The prospect of telling any one that he was going to marry little Rosie Fay terrified him. He hardly understood now how he could have told his father and mother. He would never have done it if Thor hadn't been behind him. As it was, both his parents were so discreet concerning his confidence that neither had mentioned it since that night—which made his situation endurable. So he changed the form of his question to—"bee in his bonnet about—helping people?"
"Oh, it isn't a bee in his bonnet. It's just—himself. He can't do anything else."
He said, moodily, "Perhaps he doesn't help them as much as he thinks."
"He doesn't—as much as he wants to. I know that."
"Well, why not?"
She dropped her work to her lap and looked vaguely toward the dying fire. Her air was that of a person who had already considered the question, though to little purpose. "I don't know. Sometimes I think he doesn't go the right way to work. And yet it can hardly be that. Certainly no one could go to work with a better heart."
Claude was referring inwardly to Rosie's five thousand a year, and perceiving that it created as many difficulties as it did away with, when he said, "Thinks everything a matter of dollars and cents."
She received this pensively. "Perhaps."