“You think I could never be really serious, I suppose.”
“I can’t imagine any man I ever met being really serious. And you are much nicer as you are. Please don’t try to be.”
“Why do you suppose I am working like a dog?”
“To get rich and ahead of everybody else, of course. You want to be an architect that all America talks about, and to make stacks and stacks of money.”
“You are right as far as you go. I want to get to the top, and be the first in my line, and I must have wealth; but the two are ashes without the woman. I not only love you, but I should be prouder of you than of anything else that I achieved. If I made millions you could spend them, and the more you dazzled the eyes of the world the better I should like it. You should never have a duty that was repugnant or irritating to you, and never a wish ungratified.”
“Would you button my boots?” asked Lee merrily.
“Of course I would.”
“I don’t believe you’d have time. You’ll never be through getting rich, if you are like the other millionaires of San Francisco. Tom says they work like old cart-horses from morning till night, and then die in harness.”
“Every man with energy and ambition wants to make his pile; and then, of course, when a man has made millions he must watch them or they will run away; but I should always know that you were there. That would satisfy me.”
Lee made no reply. Her lip curled, her lashes approached each other, and she looked dreamily through the green lattice of the willow to the mountains beyond the bay.