“Ancient maiden, what would you recommend?” asked the invalid, his anger disarmed by finding Octave so promptly ready to embark in the same boat of shortcomings with himself.
“The only thing I have ever found amounted to anything was just keeping busy, as busy as busy! If I keep doing something, I don’t have so much time to be bad.”
“Yes, but”—objected the repulsed aspirant after unselfishness.
“Here, I’ll roll your lounge over there by the window. Then you can see the fun. That’ll be better for you than moping over your own ‘goings to be!’”
Octave set to work; but her arm was not so strong as she thought it, and her lame ankle interfered with her freedom of movement. Suddenly she stumbled and sat down on the floor, “with a pretty conside’ble of a bang,” as Rosetta would have said.
“I’m sorry, Octave. Don’t try again. I don’t mind.” The tone was so genuine that the girl opened her eyes which she had closed in a comical grimace of pain.
“Why—why, Melville!”
“Why what?” asked he, testily.
“I believe you mean it!”
“I—but you said something about talk being cheap.”