"I didn't mean that seriously, of course. But you ought to be back in your own work. Why did you ever leave it?"
"Because I couldn't make a good enough living." David flushed as he said it. How pitifully poor, despite all his late philosophizing, that reason sounded! "Mr. Radbourne, let us drop the subject."
But the shining-eyed Jonathan would not drop it.
"I think I can understand," he said gently. "Because it seemed the best thing for others, you gave up the work you wanted to do and were fitted to do. You didn't whine and you did my little drudgeries well and patiently, as though they were the big things you would have done—"
"You don't understand. I did whine—"
"I never heard you. Miss Summers, we owe David an apology. We were sorry for him!"
"Not now," she said.
"No, not now. David, how long will it take you to finish your new plans?"
"But I'm not going to prepare plans. A few sketches for my own amusement—that's all."
"I happen to know that St. Mark's is about to build."