She looked straight ahead as she replied. "You would find life here intolerable without her."
"I know it; but in my best moments I realize how selfish it is in me to keep her."
"Suppose you were to resign, what would you do?"
"I would try to secure a chance at some field-work for the Ethnologic Bureau. It doesn't pay very well, but it would be congenial, and my proficiency in the sign language would, I think, make me valuable. I have determined never to go back to garrison life without some special duty to occupy my mind."
"Life isn't a bit simple when you are grown up, is it?"
"Life is always simple, if one does one's duty."
"That is a soldier's answer; it is not easy for me to enter into that spirit. I have my art, and no sense of duty at all."
"Your position is equally strange to me; but duties will discover themselves—later. A life without duties is impossible."
"I know what you mean, but I do not intend to allow any duty to circumscribe my art." This she uttered defiantly.
"I don't like to hear you say that. Life is greater than art."