“So it is,” said he, looking with his eyes a stronger meaning than his words bore.
She cast hers down and blushed. She had all a girl’s thirst for admiration, and the unaccustomed attention of a handsome man threw fresh charm into her manner, brightened her eyes, and made her lovelier than she dreamed.
“If not the Thames, what is there—what profession?” she asked as his eyes answered her.
“Well, there is the stage.”
“The stage!” she echoed, in horror. “You wouldn’t advise that, surely!”
“You speak of it with more horror than of the Thames.”
“Why, yes! I’d rather be a corpse than an actress!”
“But you wouldn’t have such a lively time of it,” said he, dryly.
“But, oh, to be stared at by everybody, and to paint, and be among horrid people, and for everybody else to look down upon you, and——Oh, I should not like it at all.”
“Well, isn’t it better to be looked at by everybody than not to be looked at, at all? But I suggested it only as an alternative to the Thames. Seriously, the Vicarage schoolroom must be a dull place.”