Chapter Two.
Claudia, sitting under the great beech with Harry Hilton, was becoming interested in her listener, because he showed what she called a recipient mind, meaning that he attended to all she said, and was ready and eager to admit the good effects which were to result to woman from her taking up landscape gardening. How was she to know that his thoughts meanwhile fastened themselves upon the dimple in her cheek, the waving tendrils of her hair, the whiteness of her throat? He would have agreed to almost anything uttered in her young clear voice, for the mere pleasure of hearing her speak, and his own happy and genial nature accepted the charm frankly. She was good, he was sure, and her schemes, whatever they were—and it cannot be said that he quite understood their aim—must be good too. She wanted her fellow-creatures to be raised, and she had her own ideas as to how the rise was to be effected—he thought her adorable for the wish, and more adorable for telling him about it.
“People will believe me mad,” she said. “I am quite used to that. No one is prepared for a woman who has money enough to let her sit still and fold her hands, choosing to plunge into a regular money-making occupation. Half my friends suppose it to be just a fad, and I can’t tell you how many letters I get asking me to stay, and assuring me that nobody will object to my amusing myself in their gardens. Amusing myself! Why, I make it a strictly professional matter. If I do anything—even here, for my cousins—it must be for payment. I couldn’t oppose the laws of political economy.”
“No, no,” said Harry, doing his best to struggle after her, “of course not. I think it a capital idea. When a woman has no actual home of her own, naturally she wants occupation.”
But this was not right, and Claudia frowned.
“She always wants, or ought to have, her occupations. Do you imagine that if I married, for instance, I should be content to merge all my interests in ordering dinner, or talking about servants?”
He looked at her puzzled.
“I should continue to work,” said Claudia, calmly.