“Well—” he stammered. “I don’t know; I had to do something.”
“So did I,” she replied.
Vernon cut the lazy horse with the whip, and the horse jerked the buggy as it made its professional feint at trotting.
“I did not care to lead a useless life,” he said. “I wanted to do something—to have some part in the world’s work. The law seemed to be a respectable profession and I felt that maybe I could do some good in politics. I don’t think the men of my class take as much interest in politics as they should. And then, I’d like to make my own living.”
“I have to make mine,” said Maria Greene.
“But you never thought of teaching, or nursing, or—well—painting or music, or that sort of thing, did you?”
“No,” she replied; “did you?”
Vernon laughed at an absurdity that needed no answering comment, and then he hastened on:
“Of course, you know I think it fine that you should have done as you have. You must have met with discouragements.”
She laughed, and Vernon did not note the bitterness there was concealed in the laugh; to him it seemed intended to express only that polite deprecation demanded in the treatment of a personal situation.