"I am not joking," replied he. "I can hear the wedding bells—and so can you."
"Don't!" pleaded Jane. "I've so much confidence in your insight that I can't bear to hear you saying such things even to tease me.... Why haven't you told me about these sanatoriums you want?"
"Because I've been hoping I could devise some way of getting them without the use of money. Did it ever occur to you that almost nothing that's been of real and permanent value to the world was built with money? The things that money has done have always been badly done."
"Let me help you," said Jane earnestly. "Give me something to do. Teach me how to do something. I am SO bored!—and so eager to have an occupation. I simply can't lead the life of my class.
"You want to be a lady patroness—a lady philanthropist," said Charlton, not greatly impressed by her despair. "That's only another form of the life of your class—and a most offensive form."
"Your own terms—your own terms, absolutely," cried Jane in desperation.
"No—marry Hull and go into upper and middle class politics. You'll be a lady senator or a lady ambassador or cabinet officer, at least."
"I will not marry David Hull—or anybody, just yet," cried Jane. "Why should I? I've still got ten years where there's a chance of my being able to attract some man who—attracts me. And after that I can buy as good a husband as any that offers now. Doctor Charlton, I'm in desperate, deadly earnest. And I ask you to help me."
"My own terms?"
"I give you my word."