‘Do you call that a kind offer?’ cried Nita impatiently, as her face flushed. ‘How could he suggest such a thing? Oh, really, how hard men can be!’
‘Perhaps you think he should at once have placed the half of his possessions at my disposal. Is it not better to be “hard,” as you call it, than an idiot?’
‘Well, I suppose it is. But life is such a mystery.’
‘As how—I mean how exemplified in my case?’
Nita laughed with a little embarrassment.
‘I never can explain things. But it is a mystery. You a clerk! What an idea! You must feel it to be absurd, yourself, don’t you?’
‘I have not thought much about it. It has to be done.
you know.’
‘Pray what would your sister say to it?’
‘Avice? Well, really, I don’t suppose she has any clear ideas as to what clerks are, or do. If I told her I was going to be a tailor, she would think it all right if I said so.’