"Well, in any case I should not be here much longer," she said; "and for a simple reason, too. I have nearly come to the end of my money. I shall have to go back and set to work again. I should not have been able to give myself this chance, but that my uncle spared me some of his money, to which I added my savings."
"Are you badly off?" the Disagreeable Man asked rather timidly.
"I have very few wants," she answered brightly. "And wealth is only a relative word, after all."
"It is a pity that you should go back to work so soon," he said half to himself. "You are only just better; and it is easy to lose what one has gained."
"Oh, I am not likely to lose," she answered; "but I shall be careful this time. I shall do a little teaching, and perhaps a little writing: not much—you need not be vexed. I shall not try to pick up the other threads yet. I shall not be political, nor educational, nor anything else great."
"If you call politics or education great," he said. "And heaven defend me from political or highly educated women!"
"You say that because you know nothing about them," she said sharply.
"Thank you," he replied. "I have met them quite often enough!"
"That was probably some time ago," she said rather heartlessly. "If you have lived here so long, how can you judge of the changes which go on in the world outside Petershof?"
"If I have lived here so long," he repeated, in the bitterness of his heart.