“It would be the poorer compliment to us,” she rejoined.
They looked at one another; she dropped her eyelids, he looked away.
She had the grand manner by nature. She was the woman of the girl once known.
“A soldier, is he?”
“Emile's profession and mine are much alike, or will be.”
“A secretary?”
Her deadness of accent was not designed to carry her opinion of the post of secretary.
It brought the reply: “We hope to be schoolmasters.”
She drew in a breath; there was a thin short voice, hardly voice, as when one of the unschooled minor feelings has been bruised. After a while she said—
“Does he think it a career?”