"Because the talk has no romance about it. The office would be the place for it, only you 've no time to give me if I should come there."
"You excite my curiosity." Murray disposed himself comfortably upon the wide rustic seat, screened from all beholders without and within the grounds, not only by shrubbery and hedges, but by the fast deepening July twilight. "Fire away. Anything gone wrong?"
"Nothing--except me."
"You alarm me."
"Don't joke. I 'm serious."
"I see you are. And that's what alarms me. Seriousness, at eighteen----"
"I 'm nineteen--nearly twenty. And I 'm not only serious--I 'm cross. Murray, I want something to do."
"Haven't you plenty? Jane tells me she could n't get on without you."
"Jane is a dear. And I love to help her. But I want to be doing something--else. I want to amount to something. I want to learn something."
"Miss Cockburn's finishing-school didn't finish then? Is college the bee you have in your bonnet?"